Re: [PATCH 2/4] merge-recursive: increase marker length with depth of recursion

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 15, 2018, 05:12 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq8t2z6bem.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20181012212551.7689-3-newren@gmail.com>

Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> When using merge.conflictstyle=diff3 to have the "base version" be shown
> in conflicts, there is the possibility that the base version itself has
> conflicts in it.  This comes about when there are more than one merge
> base, and the merging of those merge bases produces a conflict.
> Since this process applies recursively, it is possible to have conflict
> markers nested at an arbitrary depth; to be able to differentiate the
> conflict markers from different nestings, we make them all of different
> lengths.

I know it is possible that the common ancestor part that is enclosed by the outermost makers can have arbitrary conflicts, and they can be even recursive conflicts. But I fail to see why it is a problem. Perhaps that is because I am not particularly good at resolving merge conflicts, but as long as the common part of the outermost merge is identifyable, would that really matter? What I would do while looking at common ancestor part with conflicts (not even a recursive one) is just to ignore it, so...

Not that I strongly oppose to incrementing the marker length at every level. I do not think it would hurt, but I just do not see how it would help.