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+MERGE STRATEGIES
+----------------
+
+The merge mechanism (`git merge` and `git pull` commands) allows the
+backend 'merge strategies' to be chosen with `-s` option. Some strategies
+can also take their own options, which can be passed by giving `-X<option>`
+arguments to `git merge` and/or `git pull`.
+
+resolve::
+ This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch
+ and another branch you pulled from) using a 3-way merge
+ algorithm. It tries to carefully detect criss-cross
+ merge ambiguities and is considered generally safe and
+ fast.
+
+recursive::
+ This can only resolve two heads using a 3-way merge
+ algorithm. When there is more than one common
+ ancestor that can be used for 3-way merge, it creates a
+ merged tree of the common ancestors and uses that as
+ the reference tree for the 3-way merge. This has been
+ reported to result in fewer merge conflicts without
+ causing mismerges by tests done on actual merge commits
+ taken from Linux 2.6 kernel development history.
+ Additionally this can detect and handle merges involving
+ renames. This is the default merge strategy when
+ pulling or merging one branch.
++
+The 'recursive' strategy can take the following options:
+
+ours;;
+ This option forces conflicting hunks to be auto-resolved cleanly by
+ favoring 'our' version. Changes from the other tree that do not
+ conflict with our side are reflected to the merge result.
+ For a binary file, the entire contents are taken from our side.
++
+This should not be confused with the 'ours' merge strategy, which does not
+even look at what the other tree contains at all. It discards everything
+the other tree did, declaring 'our' history contains all that happened in it.
+
+theirs;;
+ This is the opposite of 'ours'.
+
+patience;;
+ With this option, 'merge-recursive' spends a little extra time
+ to avoid mismerges that sometimes occur due to unimportant
+ matching lines (e.g., braces from distinct functions). Use
+ this when the branches to be merged have diverged wildly.
+ See also linkgit:git-diff[1] `--patience`.
+
+diff-algorithm=[patience|minimal|histogram|myers];;
+ Tells 'merge-recursive' to use a different diff algorithm, which
+ can help avoid mismerges that occur due to unimportant matching
+ lines (such as braces from distinct functions). See also
+ linkgit:git-diff[1] `--diff-algorithm`.
+
+ignore-space-change;;
+ignore-all-space;;
+ignore-space-at-eol;;
+ Treats lines with the indicated type of whitespace change as
+ unchanged for the sake of a three-way merge. Whitespace
+ changes mixed with other changes to a line are not ignored.
+ See also linkgit:git-diff[1] `-b`, `-w`, and
+ `--ignore-space-at-eol`.
++
+* If 'their' version only introduces whitespace changes to a line,
+ 'our' version is used;
+* If 'our' version introduces whitespace changes but 'their'
+ version includes a substantial change, 'their' version is used;
+* Otherwise, the merge proceeds in the usual way.
+
+renormalize;;
+ This runs a virtual check-out and check-in of all three stages
+ of a file when resolving a three-way merge. This option is
+ meant to be used when merging branches with different clean
+ filters or end-of-line normalization rules. See "Merging
+ branches with differing checkin/checkout attributes" in
+ linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
+
+no-renormalize;;
+ Disables the `renormalize` option. This overrides the
+ `merge.renormalize` configuration variable.
+
+rename-threshold=<n>;;
+ Controls the similarity threshold used for rename detection.
+ See also linkgit:git-diff[1] `-M`.
+
+subtree[=<path>];;
+ This option is a more advanced form of 'subtree' strategy, where
+ the strategy makes a guess on how two trees must be shifted to
+ match with each other when merging. Instead, the specified path
+ is prefixed (or stripped from the beginning) to make the shape of
+ two trees to match.
+
+octopus::
+ This resolves cases with more than two heads, but refuses to do
+ a complex merge that needs manual resolution. It is
+ primarily meant to be used for bundling topic branch
+ heads together. This is the default merge strategy when
+ pulling or merging more than one branch.
+
+ours::
+ This resolves any number of heads, but the resulting tree of the
+ merge is always that of the current branch head, effectively
+ ignoring all changes from all other branches. It is meant to
+ be used to supersede old development history of side
+ branches. Note that this is different from the -Xours option to
+ the 'recursive' merge strategy.
+
+subtree::
+ This is a modified recursive strategy. When merging trees A and
+ B, if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to
+ match the tree structure of A, instead of reading the trees at
+ the same level. This adjustment is also done to the common
+ ancestor tree.
+
+With the strategies that use 3-way merge (including the default, 'recursive'),
+if a change is made on both branches, but later reverted on one of the
+branches, that change will be present in the merged result; some people find
+this behavior confusing. It occurs because only the heads and the merge base
+are considered when performing a merge, not the individual commits. The merge
+algorithm therefore considers the reverted change as no change at all, and
+substitutes the changed version instead.