From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:01:47 GMT
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] Pass empty file to p4merge where no base is suitable.
Message-ID: <7vfwpd529g.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vwriq3p0t.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> Also, the command to use when you want to get an empty file is not "touch".
> It is not likely that you would have an existing file there, but the whole
> point of the updated codepath is to have an empty file, and not a file
> with recent timestamp, it would be far more sensible to say
>
> 	: >"$BASE"
>
> i.e. redirect into the path, with a no-op command.

By the way, you may want to study what git-merge-one-file.sh script does
when given a "both sides added, but differently" situation (look for a
string "--no-add" in the script).  It first tries to see if there are many
common material that are added in both sides, and if so tries to use that
common material as the "fake" base.  If there isn't enough common
material, it uses an empty file as the base.