threads / discuss / 10680

git-merge ignore specific files

Subject: git-merge ignore specific files

## tl;dr

5 messages between Nov 6, 2007 and Nov 6, 2007.

replies: 4people: 3as markdown or json

Bill Priest· Nov 6, 2007, 12:38 UTC · lore

All,
  I have two branches that are slightly different and
most changes "belong" in both.  There are a handful of
files/directories that are disparate.  Is there any
way in git to tell it not to merge these files?  Kind
of like .gitignore but for merges.
  In addition I'd like a way to specify to git-merge
to leave all merged files unrecorded in the index. 
Then as I go through each file making sure that the
merge "makes sense" (not that git did the right thing;
but that I want the changes in both branches) that I
add the change to the index.
  I'm sure that I'm probably using git "incorrectly"
and I welcome suggestions for modifying my workflow to
a git style.

Any and all suggestions greatly appreciated,

Bill

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Andreas Ericsson· Nov 6, 2007, 12:53 UTC · re: Bill Priest · lore

Re: git-merge ignore specific files

Bill Priest wrote:

Show 18 quoted lines

> All,
>   I have two branches that are slightly different and
> most changes "belong" in both.  There are a handful of
> files/directories that are disparate.  Is there any
> way in git to tell it not to merge these files?  Kind
> of like .gitignore but for merges.
>   In addition I'd like a way to specify to git-merge
> to leave all merged files unrecorded in the index. 
> Then as I go through each file making sure that the
> merge "makes sense" (not that git did the right thing;
> but that I want the changes in both branches) that I
> add the change to the index.
>   I'm sure that I'm probably using git "incorrectly"
> and I welcome suggestions for modifying my workflow to
> a git style.
> 
> Any and all suggestions greatly appreciated,
>

At a cursory glance at the sources, it looks as if you should be able to get what you want with pretty small modifications to builtin-read-tree.c and git-merge.sh.

Specifically, 'git read-tree' (which does the heavy lifting during merges) takes --exclude-per-directory as an argument. You want to teach 'git merge' to do the same and pass that argument along to 'git read-tree'. Then it's just a matter of maintaining two sets of .gitignore files, one of which you'd probably want to call .mergeignore (or something) and make sure you don't forget to pass that option when you merge (although I assume you'd notice if you'd forgotten it during conflict resolution).

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

Jakub Narebski· Nov 6, 2007, 13:03 UTC · re: Bill Priest · lore

Re: git-merge ignore specific files

Bill Priest wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> All,
>   I have two branches that are slightly different and
> most changes "belong" in both.  There are a handful of
> files/directories that are disparate.  Is there any
> way in git to tell it not to merge these files?  Kind
> of like .gitignore but for merges.

Most probably you can use gitattributes for that. Or you can use 'our' merge strategy.

Show 6 quoted lines

>   In addition I'd like a way to specify to git-merge
> to leave all merged files unrecorded in the index. 
> Then as I go through each file making sure that the
> merge "makes sense" (not that git did the right thing;
> but that I want the changes in both branches) that I
> add the change to the index.

You can use gitattributes for that.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Bill Priest· Nov 6, 2007, 13:15 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Re: git-merge ignore specific files

--- Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> Bill Priest wrote:
> 
> > All,
> >   I have two branches that are slightly different
> and
> > most changes "belong" in both.  There are a
> handful of
> > files/directories that are disparate.  Is there
> any
> > way in git to tell it not to merge these files? 
> Kind
> > of like .gitignore but for merges.
> 
> Most probably you can use gitattributes for that.
> Or you can use 'our' merge strategy.

Can you point me to some docs on "our" merge strategy?

Show 14 quoted lines

> 
> >   In addition I'd like a way to specify to
> git-merge
> > to leave all merged files unrecorded in the index.
> 
> > Then as I go through each file making sure that
> the
> > merge "makes sense" (not that git did the right
> thing;
> > but that I want the changes in both branches) that
> I
> > add the change to the index.
> 
> You can use gitattributes for that.

I did man gitattributes and nothing jumped out at me as far as an attribute that I could set/unset that would stop a file from being merged. What am I missing?

Bill

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Jakub Narebski· Nov 6, 2007, 13:46 UTC · re: Bill Priest · lore

Re: git-merge ignore specific files

Bill Priest wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bill Priest wrote:
>> 
>>> All,
>>>   I have two branches that are slightly different and
>>> most changes "belong" in both.  There are a handful of
>>> files/directories that are disparate.  Is there any
>>> way in git to tell it not to merge these files? Kind
>>> of like .gitignore but for merges.
>> 
>> Most probably you can use gitattributes for that.
>> Or you can use 'our' merge strategy.
> 
> Can you point me to some docs on "our" merge strategy?

git-merge(1), section "Merge strategies":

  ours::
        This resolves any number of heads, but the result of the
        merge is always the current branch head.  It is meant to
        be used to supersede old development history of side
        branches.

Show 13 quoted lines

>>>   In addition I'd like a way to specify to git-merge
>>> to leave all merged files unrecorded in the index.
>>> Then as I go through each file making sure that the
>>> merge "makes sense" (not that git did the right thing;
>>> but that I want the changes in both branches) that
>>> I add the change to the index.
>> 
>> You can use gitattributes for that.
> 
> I did man gitattributes and nothing jumped out at me
> as far as an attribute that I could set/unset that
> would stop a file from being merged.  What am I
> missing?

See `diff' and `merge' attributes, for example

*.nbi		-diff -merge

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland