The reader unfamiliar with the concepts of branching and merging would have been completely lost. Try to help him with a diagram. The diagram comes from the 'git rebase' manual page. Cc: Petr Baudis <pasky@xxxxxxx> Cc: Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Thomas Rast <trast@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx> --- Does this tell enough of the story? Documentation/git-merge.txt | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 1 files changed, 25 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/git-merge.txt b/Documentation/git-merge.txt index 394ad0a..fe190e2 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-merge.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-merge.txt @@ -14,8 +14,31 @@ SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION ----------- -This is the top-level interface to the merge machinery -which drives multiple merge strategy scripts. +Incorporates changes leading up to the named commits into the +current branch. This command is used by 'git pull' to incorporate +remote changes from another repository and may be used by hand to +merge changes from one branch into another. + +Assume the following history exists and the current branch is +"`master`": + +------------ + A---B---C topic + / + D---E---F---G master +------------ + +Then "`git merge topic`" will apply the changes from `A`, `B`, +and `C` to the work tree, and if they do not conflict with any +changes from `master`, will store the result in a new commit along +with the names of the two parent commits and a log message from the +user describing the changes. + +------------ + A---B---C topic + / \ + D---E---F---G---H master +------------ The second syntax (<msg> `HEAD` <remote>) is supported for historical reasons. Do not use it from the command line or in -- 1.6.6 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html