Name
merge
Synopsis
merge [options
]file1 file2 file3
Performs a three-way file merge. merge
incorporates all changes that lead from file2 to
file3 and puts the results into
file1. merge
is useful for
combining separate changes to an original. Suppose
file2 is the original, and both
file1 and file3 are
modifications of file2. Then
merge
combines both changes. A conflict occurs if
both file1 and file3 have
changes in a common segment of lines. If a conflict is found,
merge
normally outputs a warning and puts brackets
around the conflict, with lines preceded by
<<<<<<< and >>>>>>>. A
typical conflict looks like this:
<<<<<<< file1 relevant lines from file1 = = = = = = = relevant lines from file3 >>>>>>> file3
If there are conflicts, the user should edit the result and delete one of the alternatives.
Options
-
-e
Don’t warn about conflicts.
-
-p
Send results to standard output instead of overwriting file1.
-
-q
Quiet; do not warn about conflicts.
-
-A
Output conflicts using the
-A
style ofdiff3
. This merges all changes leading from file2 to file3 into file1, and generates the most verbose output.-
-E
Output conflict information in a less verbose style than
-A
; this is the default.-
-L
label
Specify up to three labels to be used in place of the corresponding filenames in conflict reports. That is:
merge -L x -L y -L z file_a file_b file_c
generates output that looks as if it came from x, y, and z instead of from file_a, file_b, and file_c.
-
-V
Print version number.
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