Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

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

-A

Output conflicts using the -A style of diff3. This merges all changes leading from file2 to file3 into file1, and generates the most verbose output.

-e

Don’t warn about conflicts.

-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.

-p

Send results to standard output instead of overwriting file1.

-q

Quiet; don’t warn about conflicts.

-V

Print version number.