Re: no MERGE_HEAD after octopus merge failure

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 19, 2017, 02:29 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqlgqxceqb.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CALQ-8C+9dzM0cNCrK-DGiu8fc=UsS11OZbwhXWh_CDGOeGnECA@mail.gmail.com>

Max Ivanov <ivanov.maxim@gmail.com> writes:

> I am using git 2.12.0 and it leaves no MERGE_HEAD once octopus merge
> failed with conflicts. Is it intentional? Files have conflicts markers
> and once resolved `git commit` creates just a normal commit, which is
> very inconvenient and confusing.

I suspect you got these lines in the error message, which you didn't read:

    Automated merge did not work.
    Should not be doing an octopus.

Octopus is designed to be done only for simple conflict-less merges, because it makes later bisection inherently (read: not fault of the tool, but a natural consequence of the shape of the resulting history) less efficient. It might have been better if we chose to (1) refuse octopus merge if the working tree before "git merge" starts is not clean, and(2) automatically run "git reset --hard" when failing an octopus issuing the above error message. But we didn't, so you'd need to do "git reset --hard" and merge the tips one by one, not making an octopus.