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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-merge-base.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-merge-base.txt | 28 |
1 files changed, 16 insertions, 12 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-merge-base.txt b/Documentation/git-merge-base.txt index 2f0c5259e0..ce5b369985 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-merge-base.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-merge-base.txt @@ -8,27 +8,32 @@ git-merge-base - Find as good common ancestors as possible for a merge SYNOPSIS -------- -'git merge-base' [--all] <commit> <commit>... +'git merge-base' [-a|--all] <commit> <commit>... DESCRIPTION ----------- -'git-merge-base' finds best common ancestor(s) between two commits to use +'git merge-base' finds best common ancestor(s) between two commits to use in a three-way merge. One common ancestor is 'better' than another common ancestor if the latter is an ancestor of the former. A common ancestor -that does not have any better common ancestor than it is a 'best common +that does not have any better common ancestor is a 'best common ancestor', i.e. a 'merge base'. Note that there can be more than one -merge bases between two commits. +merge base for a pair of commits. -Among the two commits to compute their merge bases, one is specified by +Among the two commits to compute the merge base from, one is specified by the first commit argument on the command line; the other commit is a (possibly hypothetical) commit that is a merge across all the remaining -commits on the command line. As the most common special case, giving only -two commits from the command line means computing the merge base between +commits on the command line. As the most common special case, specifying only +two commits on the command line means computing the merge base between the given two commits. +As a consequence, the 'merge base' is not necessarily contained in each of the +commit arguments if more than two commits are specified. This is different +from linkgit:git-show-branch[1] when used with the `--merge-base` option. + OPTIONS ------- +-a:: --all:: Output all merge bases for the commits, instead of just one. @@ -47,7 +52,7 @@ For example, with this topology: the merge base between 'A' and 'B' is '1'. Given three commits 'A', 'B' and 'C', `git merge-base A B C` will compute the -merge base between 'A' and an hypothetical commit 'M', which is a merge +merge base between 'A' and a hypothetical commit 'M', which is a merge between 'B' and 'C'. For example, with this topology: o---o---o---o---C @@ -71,8 +76,7 @@ common ancestor between 'A' and 'M', but '1' is a better common ancestor, because '2' is an ancestor of '1'. Hence, '2' is not a merge base. When the history involves criss-cross merges, there can be more than one -'best' common ancestors between two commits. For example, with this -topology: +'best' common ancestor for two commits. For example, with this topology: ---1---o---A \ / @@ -80,8 +84,8 @@ topology: / \ ---2---o---o---B -both '1' and '2' are merge-base of A and B. Neither one is better than -the other (both are 'best' merge base). When `--all` option is not given, +both '1' and '2' are merge-bases of A and B. Neither one is better than +the other (both are 'best' merge bases). When the `--all` option is not given, it is unspecified which best one is output. Author |