GIT-MERGETOOL(1) Git Manual GIT-MERGETOOL(1)
NAME
git-mergetool - Run merge conflict resolution tools to resolve merge
conflicts
SYNOPSIS
git mergetool [--tool=<tool>] [-y | --[no-]prompt] [<file>...]
DESCRIPTION
Use git mergetool to run one of several merge utilities to resolve
merge conflicts. It is typically run after git merge.
If one or more <file> parameters are given, the merge tool program will
be run to resolve differences in each file (skipping those without
conflicts). Specifying a directory will include all unresolved files in
that path. If no <file> names are specified, git mergetool will run the
merge tool program on every file with merge conflicts.
OPTIONS
-t <tool>, --tool=<tool>
Use the merge resolution program specified by <tool>. Valid values
include emerge, gvimdiff, kdiff3, meld, vimdiff, and tortoisemerge.
Run git mergetool --tool-help for the list of valid <tool>
settings.
If a merge resolution program is not specified, git mergetool will
use the configuration variable merge.tool. If the configuration
variable merge.tool is not set, git mergetool will pick a suitable
default.
You can explicitly provide a full path to the tool by setting the
configuration variable mergetool.<tool>.path. For example, you can
configure the absolute path to kdiff3 by setting
mergetool.kdiff3.path. Otherwise, git mergetool assumes the tool is
available in PATH.
Instead of running one of the known merge tool programs, git
mergetool can be customized to run an alternative program by
specifying the command line to invoke in a configuration variable
mergetool.<tool>.cmd.
When git mergetool is invoked with this tool (either through the -t
or --tool option or the merge.tool configuration variable), the
configured command line will be invoked with $BASE set to the name
of a temporary file containing the common base for the merge, if
available; $LOCAL set to the name of a temporary file containing
the contents of the file on the current branch; $REMOTE set to the
name of a temporary file containing the contents of the file to be
merged, and $MERGED set to the name of the file to which the merge
tool should write the result of the merge resolution.
If the custom merge tool correctly indicates the success of a merge
resolution with its exit code, then the configuration variable
mergetool.<tool>.trustExitCode can be set to true. Otherwise, git
mergetool will prompt the user to indicate the success of the
resolution after the custom tool has exited.
--tool-help
Print a list of merge tools that may be used with --tool.
-y, --no-prompt
Don't prompt before each invocation of the merge resolution
program. This is the default if the merge resolution program is
explicitly specified with the --tool option or with the merge.tool
configuration variable.
--prompt
Prompt before each invocation of the merge resolution program to
give the user a chance to skip the path.
-g, --gui
When git-mergetool is invoked with the -g or --gui option, the
default merge tool will be read from the configured merge.guitool
variable instead of merge.tool. If merge.guitool is not set, we
will fallback to the tool configured under merge.tool. This may be
autoselected using the configuration variable mergetool.guiDefault.
--no-gui
This overrides a previous -g or --gui setting or
mergetool.guiDefault configuration and reads the default merge tool
from the configured merge.tool variable.
-O<orderfile>
Process files in the order specified in the <orderfile>, which has
one shell glob pattern per line. This overrides the diff.orderFile
configuration variable (see git-config(1)). To cancel
diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what's
found there:
mergetool.<tool>.path
Override the path for the given tool. This is useful in case your
tool is not in the PATH.
mergetool.<tool>.cmd
Specify the command to invoke the specified merge tool. The
specified command is evaluated in shell with the following
variables available: BASE is the name of a temporary file
containing the common base of the files to be merged, if available;
LOCAL is the name of a temporary file containing the contents of
the file on the current branch; REMOTE is the name of a temporary
file containing the contents of the file from the branch being
merged; MERGED contains the name of the file to which the merge
tool should write the results of a successful merge.
mergetool.<tool>.hideResolved
Allows the user to override the global mergetool.hideResolved value
for a specific tool. See mergetool.hideResolved for the full
description.
mergetool.<tool>.trustExitCode
For a custom merge command, specify whether the exit code of the
merge command can be used to determine whether the merge was
successful. If this is not set to true then the merge target file
timestamp is checked, and the merge is assumed to have been
successful if the file has been updated; otherwise, the user is
prompted to indicate the success of the merge.
mergetool.meld.hasOutput
Older versions of meld do not support the --output option. Git will
attempt to detect whether meld supports --output by inspecting the
output of meld --help. Configuring mergetool.meld.hasOutput will
make Git skip these checks and use the configured value instead.
Setting mergetool.meld.hasOutput to true tells Git to
unconditionally use the --output option, and false avoids using
--output.
mergetool.meld.useAutoMerge
When the --auto-merge is given, meld will merge all non-conflicting
parts automatically, highlight the conflicting parts, and wait for
user decision. Setting mergetool.meld.useAutoMerge to true tells
Git to unconditionally use the --auto-merge option with meld.
Setting this value to auto makes git detect whether --auto-merge is
supported and will only use --auto-merge when available. A value of
false avoids using --auto-merge altogether, and is the default
value.
mergetool.vimdiff.layout
The vimdiff backend uses this variable to control how its split
windows appear. Applies even if you are using Neovim (nvim) or gVim
(gvim) as the merge tool. See BACKEND SPECIFIC HINTS section for
details.
mergetool.hideResolved
During a merge, Git will automatically resolve as many conflicts as
possible and write the MERGED file containing conflict markers
around any conflicts that it cannot resolve; LOCAL and REMOTE
normally represent the versions of the file from before Git's
conflict resolution. This flag causes LOCAL and REMOTE to be
overwritten so that only the unresolved conflicts are presented to
the merge tool. Can be configured per-tool via the
mergetool.<tool>.hideResolved configuration variable. Defaults to
false.
mergetool.keepBackup
After performing a merge, the original file with conflict markers
can be saved as a file with a .orig extension. If this variable is
set to false then this file is not preserved. Defaults to true
(i.e. keep the backup files).
mergetool.keepTemporaries
When invoking a custom merge tool, Git uses a set of temporary
files to pass to the tool. If the tool returns an error and this
variable is set to true, then these temporary files will be
preserved; otherwise, they will be removed after the tool has
exited. Defaults to false.
mergetool.writeToTemp
Git writes temporary BASE, LOCAL, and REMOTE versions of
conflicting files in the worktree by default. Git will attempt to
use a temporary directory for these files when set true. Defaults
to false.
mergetool.prompt
Prompt before each invocation of the merge resolution program.
mergetool.guiDefault
Set true to use the merge.guitool by default (equivalent to
specifying the --gui argument), or auto to select merge.guitool or
merge.tool depending on the presence of a DISPLAY environment
variable value. The default is false, where the --gui argument must
be provided explicitly for the merge.guitool to be used.
TEMPORARY FILES
git mergetool creates *.orig backup files while resolving merges. These
are safe to remove once a file has been merged and its git mergetool
session has completed.
Setting the mergetool.keepBackup configuration variable to false causes
git mergetool to automatically remove the backup files as files are
successfully merged.
BACKEND SPECIFIC HINTS
vimdiff
Description
When specifying --tool=vimdiff in git mergetool Git will open Vim
with a 4 windows layout distributed in the following way:
------------------------------------------
| | | |
| LOCAL | BASE | REMOTE |
| | | |
------------------------------------------
| |
| MERGED |
| |
------------------------------------------
LOCAL, BASE and REMOTE are read-only buffers showing the contents
of the conflicting file in specific commits ("commit you are
merging into", "common ancestor commit" and "commit you are merging
from" respectively)
MERGED is a writable buffer where you have to resolve the conflicts
(using the other read-only buffers as a reference). Once you are
done, save and exit Vim as usual (:wq) or, if you want to abort,
exit using :cq.
Layout configuration
You can change the windows layout used by Vim by setting
configuration variable mergetool.vimdiff.layout which accepts a
string where the following separators have special meaning:
o + is used to "open a new tab"
o , is used to "open a new vertical split"
o / is used to "open a new horizontal split"
o @ is used to indicate the file containing the final version
after solving the conflicts. If not present, MERGED will be
used by default.
The precedence of the operators is as follows (you can use
parentheses to change it):
`@` > `+` > `/` > `,`
Let's see some examples to understand how it works:
o layout = "(LOCAL,BASE,REMOTE)/MERGED"
This is exactly the same as the default layout we have already
seen.
Note that / has precedence over , and thus the parenthesis are
not needed in this case. The next layout definition is
equivalent:
layout = "LOCAL,BASE,REMOTE / MERGED"
o layout = "LOCAL,MERGED,REMOTE"
If, for some reason, we are not interested in the BASE buffer.
------------------------------------------
| | | |
| | | |
| LOCAL | MERGED | REMOTE |
| | | |
| | | |
------------------------------------------
o layout = "MERGED"
Only the MERGED buffer will be shown. Note, however, that all
the other ones are still loaded in vim, and you can access them
with the "buffers" command.
------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| MERGED |
| |
| |
------------------------------------------
o layout = "@LOCAL,REMOTE"
When MERGED is not present in the layout, you must "mark" one
of the buffers with an asterisk. That will become the buffer
you need to edit and save after resolving the conflicts.
------------------------------------------
| | |
| | |
| | |
| LOCAL | REMOTE |
| | |
| | |
| | |
------------------------------------------
o layout = "LOCAL,BASE,REMOTE / MERGED + BASE,LOCAL +
BASE,REMOTE"
Three tabs will open: the first one is a copy of the default
layout, while the other two only show the differences between
(BASE and LOCAL) and (BASE and REMOTE) respectively.
------------------------------------------
| <TAB #1> | TAB #2 | TAB #3 | |
------------------------------------------
| | | |
| LOCAL | BASE | REMOTE |
| | | |
------------------------------------------
| |
| MERGED |
| |
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
| TAB #1 | <TAB #2> | TAB #3 | |
------------------------------------------
| | |
| | |
| | |
| BASE | LOCAL |
| | |
| | |
| | |
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
| TAB #1 | TAB #2 | <TAB #3> | |
------------------------------------------
| | |
| | |
| | |
| BASE | REMOTE |
| | |
| | |
| | |
------------------------------------------
o layout = "LOCAL,BASE,REMOTE / MERGED + BASE,LOCAL + BASE,REMOTE
+ (LOCAL/BASE/REMOTE),MERGED"
Same as the previous example, but adds a fourth tab with the
same information as the first tab, with a different layout.
---------------------------------------------
| TAB #1 | TAB #2 | TAB #3 | <TAB #4> |
---------------------------------------------
| LOCAL | |
|---------------------| |
| BASE | MERGED |
|---------------------| |
| REMOTE | |
---------------------------------------------
Note how in the third tab definition we need to use parentheses
to make , have precedence over /.
Variants
Instead of --tool=vimdiff, you can also use one of these other
variants:
o --tool=gvimdiff, to open gVim instead of Vim.
o --tool=nvimdiff, to open Neovim instead of Vim.
When using these variants, in order to specify a custom layout you
will have to set configuration variables mergetool.gvimdiff.layout
and mergetool.nvimdiff.layout instead of mergetool.vimdiff.layout
In addition, for backwards compatibility with previous Git
versions, you can also append 1, 2 or 3 to either vimdiff or any of
the variants (ex: vimdiff3, nvimdiff1, etc...) to use a predefined
layout. In other words, using --tool=[g,n,]vimdiffx is the same as
using --tool=[g,n,]vimdiff and setting configuration variable
mergetool.[g,n,]vimdiff.layout to...
o x=1: "@LOCAL, REMOTE"
o x=2: "LOCAL, MERGED, REMOTE"
o x=3: "MERGED"
Example: using --tool=gvimdiff2 will open gvim with three columns
(LOCAL, MERGED and REMOTE).
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.43.5 05/31/2024 GIT-MERGETOOL(1)
Linux-Distributionen
Huschi als Linux-Admin