Re: Improving merge of tricky conflicts

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 24, 2020, 06:01 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqblk5moxx.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <CA+P7+xpPDu900dao08wfYtZ2pqU89D9vmwQPuFT-z5S5b-DXNA@mail.gmail.com>

Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

> On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 2:43 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> If your merge used the merge (as opposed to diff3) style, and seeing
>> that the resulting conflict is not easy to review and you wish you
>> used diff3 style instead, it is way too late for any option to "git
>> merge" to help you.
>>
>> But having an option to "git checkout" lets you move forward from
>> that state, so it also makes 100% more sense than an option to "git
>> merge".
>
> Perhaps the issue is just that it's not discoverable easily because
> it's a different command.

That may be true.

By the way, "git checkout --conflict=<style>" is a short-hand for "git checkout --merge --conflict=<style>" and it is quite useful not just in the said case of "oops, I cannot read this conflict with the 'merge' style---let's switch to 'diff3' style". After starting to attempt resolving the conflict, sometimes I become unsure if the resolution I've been working on is correct, and want to start from scratch. In such a case, even without switching the style to a different one, "git checkout --merge" to discard the changes I made in the working tree file and reproduce the auto-merged state with conflict markers, is a good tool in your toolbox to know (being able to give a different conflict style is merely a natural extension of the feature).

Perhaps in Documentation/git-merge.txt there can be a mention of

	When you really screwed up your resolution, you could use
	"git checkout --merge -- $paths" to revert selected paths
	back to the state just before the auto-merge gave up and
	asked your help in resolving.  The --conflict=<style> option
	can be used instead of the "--merge" option in the command
	to use a different conflict marking style.  See
	git-checkout[1] for details.

or something along that line. People who are unware of "checkout -m" in such a situation may run "git reset --hard" and redo the whole merge from scratch, but you do not have to discard the resolution you made in other paths successfully only to redo a few files that you botched.