Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > Sergey Organov <sorganov@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> To clarify, could you please tell if plain >> >> git merge -s ours >> >> is a "partial merge" from your point of view? > > It is not even "partial". OK, get it, thanks! I asked for clarification because it /is/ possible to interpret such merge as "partial" in the sense that it gets only /part/ of changes, discarding those that were introduced on the side branch. > > The merge strategy "-s ours" is a way to cauterize a side branch as > dead-end, declaring that everything that has ever been done on that > side branch up to the point of the merge is not interesting and we'd > never want to look at anything that builds on it. > > It has its uses, though. After doing so, "git log --all ^mainline" > or "git branch --not-merged release" would not show such a > cauterized branch; it is a good way to "hide" the branch that you > deem a dead-end when you cannot remove it. But of course you do not > want to ever build on such a side branch after doing so. > I think the usefulness of the feature might happen to be somewhat wider, yet I'm to avoid arguing, to scatter no attention. >> If you think it is not, then what about: >> >> git merge -X ours > > It is not even a sensible merge. I don't believe one could tell out of context, see below. Anyway, the question was not if it's good, bad, or sensible. Suppose I do such a "non-sensible" merge, is it a "partial merge" or not? > It takes their changes where we didn't touch, but it takes our change > without even looking at what they did when the changes overlap. Sure, and that happens to be exactly what I need from Git when I do such merge, because I did look at all the 137 conflicts and found none where I need different resolution; and yes, I'm too lazy to resolve all 137 by hand. Makes sense? Is my merge "partial" /now/? Getting back to technical discussion, can we come up with a useful definition of "partial merge" at all? Honestly, I can't, and unless somebody else does, I'm inclined to consider it to be an arbitrary label being put on selected merge examples for the sake of argument. Thanks, -- Sergey
