From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:30:19 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Document what the stage numbers in the :$n:path syntax mean. Message-ID: <7vveba90qs.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20070820060522.GA27913@spearce.org> "Shawn O. Pearce" writes: >> Am I the only one who messes this up? If not, patch is below. > > Maybe. ;-) > > I've memorized it long long ago. But my coworkers haven't and always > get it wrong, and look at me funny when I tell them "trust me, your > data is in stage 2 and theirs is in stage 3... because that's the > convention all of the tools you are using follows". I am not _opposed_ to :ours:$path syntax, but I suspect there is something else that is wrong if you need to use :$n:$path syntax that often. I have never been in a situation I had to say :base:$path, unless I am debugging the merge driver. So it is between :ours:$path and :theirs:$path. But aren't they by definition HEAD:$path and MERGE_HEAD:$path, which are far more descriptive?