git-merge-index

GIT-MERGE-INDEX(1)                Git Manual                GIT-MERGE-INDEX(1)

NAME
       git-merge-index - Run a merge for files needing merging

SYNOPSIS
       git merge-index [-o] [-q] <merge-program> (-a | [--] <file>*)

DESCRIPTION
       This looks up the <file>(s) in the index and, if there are any merge
       entries, passes the SHA-1 hash for those files as arguments 1, 2, 3
       (empty argument if no file), and <file> as argument 4. File modes for
       the three files are passed as arguments 5, 6 and 7.

OPTIONS
       --
           Do not interpret any more arguments as options.

       -a
           Run merge against all files in the index that need merging.

       -o
           Instead of stopping at the first failed merge, do all of them in
           one shot - continue with merging even when previous merges returned
           errors, and only return the error code after all the merges.

       -q
           Do not complain about a failed merge program (a merge program
           failure usually indicates conflicts during the merge). This is for
           porcelains which might want to emit custom messages.

       If git merge-index is called with multiple <file>s (or -a) then it
       processes them in turn only stopping if merge returns a non-zero exit
       code.

       Typically this is run with a script calling Git's imitation of the
       merge command from the RCS package.

       A sample script called git merge-one-file is included in the
       distribution.

       ALERT ALERT ALERT! The Git "merge object order" is different from the
       RCS merge program merge object order. In the above ordering, the
       original is first. But the argument order to the 3-way merge program
       merge is to have the original in the middle. Don't ask me why.

       Examples:

           torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat MM
           This is MM from the original tree.              # original
           This is modified MM in the branch A.            # merge1
           This is modified MM in the branch B.            # merge2
           This is modified MM in the branch B.            # current contents

       or

           torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat AA MM
           cat: : No such file or directory
           This is added AA in the branch A.
           This is added AA in the branch B.
           This is added AA in the branch B.
           fatal: merge program failed

       where the latter example shows how git merge-index will stop trying to
       merge once anything has returned an error (i.e., cat returned an error
       for the AA file, because it didn't exist in the original, and thus git
       merge-index didn't even try to merge the MM thing).

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                GIT-MERGE-INDEX(1)