The reader unfamiliar with the concepts of branching and merging would have been completely lost. Try to help him with a diagram. Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx> --- The advice in [1] was very helpful. I fear I’ve made a mess of the language even so. At least it does seem much clearer now. Thoughts? [1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/136356/focus=136629 Documentation/git-merge.txt | 28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 1 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/git-merge.txt b/Documentation/git-merge.txt index 83bf3e7..a7a40c6 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-merge.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-merge.txt @@ -15,8 +15,32 @@ SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION ----------- -Merges the history specified by <commit> into HEAD, optionally using a -specific merge strategy. +Incorporates changes from the named commits (since the time their +histories diverged from the current branch) into the current +branch. This command is used by 'git pull' to incorporate changes +from another repository and can 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 replay the changes made on the +`topic` branch since it diverged from `master` (i.e., `E`) until +its current commit (`C`) on top of `master`, and record 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` <commit>...) 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