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Re: [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive.

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From: Linus Torvalds
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive.
Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - 8:53 am

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006, Jakub Narebski wrote:

Nope. It has something it calls "merge", but it's really just "apply the 
diff from the common base to the other end".

IOW, if "a" is your common ancestor, and "b1" and "b2" are the branches, 
it's literally

	diff a b1 | patch b2

and not actually a real 3-way merge.

As to why git uses "merge" - I have this strong memory of having seen 
machines that had one but not the other, and that, along with the fact 
that I've used "merge" personally, is why we call "merge" rather than 
diff3.

In Linux systems, "merge" usually comes with the RCS package, and "diff3" 
is usually from "diffutils". It may be that "diff3" is more common. I'm 
not sure what the history is, and what the situation would tend to be like 
on other systems..

		Linus

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Messages in current thread:
Re: [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive., Jakub Narebski, (Wed Oct 18, 2:35 am)
Re: [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive., Johannes Schindelin, (Wed Oct 18, 3:04 am)
Re: [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive., Linus Torvalds, (Wed Oct 18, 8:53 am)
Re: [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive., Daniel Barkalow, (Wed Oct 18, 11:31 pm)