Re: Comments on recursive merge..

[Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>]

Fredrik Kuivinen <freku045@student.liu.se> writes:

> On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 08:48:06AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>> 
>> Guys,
>> 
>>   I just hit my first real rename conflict, and very timidly tried the 
>> "recursive" strategy in the hopes that I wouldn't need to do things by 
>> hand.
>> 
>> It resolved things beautifully. Good job. 
>
> I'm glad that it worked.

This is the first time I see you pleased by something in git
that was done without very close supervision from you.  All the
credits for this one goes to Fredrik, of course, but it is a
small victory for me as the maintainer as well, and I am very
happy about it.

>> ..., I'd almost suggest making "recursive" the default. I'm a
>> bit nervous about it, but knowing how it works would probably
>> put most of that to rest.

Another thing to consider is if it is fast enough for everyday
trivial merges.

In any case, I've been thinking about teaching git-merge to look
into .git/config to make it overridable which strategy to use by
default.  This would eliminate the hardcoded 'resolve for
two-head, octopus for more' rule from git-pull.  Then we could
ship git-merge with the default rule of 'recursive for two-head,
octopus for more', and if it turns out to be premature, you can
update your config file to use resolve for two-head case while
we sort things out.  That way, recursive would get wider test
coverage, and people who really need a working merge this minute
can choose to run resolve in emergency without specifying '-s
resolve' on the command line of 'git pull' every time.