Re: [PATCH] Document what the stage numbers in the :$n:path syntax mean.

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 20, 2007, 06:20 UTC
Message-ID: <7v4piuafqy.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <46C90C46.1030000@midwinter.com>

Steven Grimm <koreth@midwinter.com> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> People should learn this command.  Really.
>>
>>       $ git cat-file -p :$n:path
>>
>> where $n == 2 is ours, $n == 1 is common ancestor, and $n == 3
>> is theirs.
>
> The git-rev-parse manpage talks about the :$n:path notation (buried deep in
> a list of other syntax) but it just says $n is a "stage number" -- someone
> who is not familiar with the internals of git's merge implementation is
> never going to be able to figure out that "1", "2", and "3" mean what Junio
> said.

The patch makes sense.  Thanks.

Just to give historical background to new readers, this is primarily because the really core level of the plumbing started as not caring between stages 2 and 3 (iow, as far as the merge is concerned, both heads are equal), and the description in the manual was written back then.

These days, all the merge strategies and other non-merge programs such as "git am" that can record conflicts as multi-stage index entries consistently use stage #2 as our version, and stages #2 and #3 are not equals anymore.