From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
To: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive.
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 08:53:53 -0700 (PDT) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0610180835000.3962@g5.osdl.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <eh4sfr$3ej$1@sea.gmane.org>
On Wed, 18 Oct 2006, Jakub Narebski wrote:
>
> Doesn't xdiff library git uses have diff3/merge equivalent?
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
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2006-10-18 15:54 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2006-10-18 8:59 [PATCH] Use diff3 instead of merge in merge-recursive Uwe Zeisberger
2006-10-18 9:35 ` Jakub Narebski
2006-10-18 10:04 ` Johannes Schindelin
2006-10-18 15:53 ` Linus Torvalds [this message]
2006-10-19 6:31 ` Daniel Barkalow
2006-10-18 9:38 ` Johannes Schindelin
2006-10-20 21:11 ` Uwe Zeisberger
2006-10-21 0:06 ` Johannes Schindelin
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