Version-control merging combines development histories and their changes into a result intended to preserve both lines of work. In Git, a usual three-way merge compares two branch tips with a common base. Independent edits may combine automatically; overlapping or incompatible edits can produce a merge conflict requiring a decision.[ref]
git-merge in the Git documentation. Description, True merge and How conflicts are presented
If one tip is already an ancestor of the other, a fast-forward can move the branch reference without creating a separate merge commit. Otherwise a merge commit can record the combined snapshot and both parents. A textually clean merge can still be semantically wrong: one branch can change a function's contract while another adds a caller using the old contract. Testing and review of the combined result remain distinct from resolving text conflicts.
A merge conflict occurs when a version-control merging operation cannot automatically reconcile changes under its merge rules. For a typical three-way merge, the tool compares two revisions with their common base. Incompatible edits to the same region, or deletion on one side and modification on the other, can require a human decision.[ref]
git-merge in the Git documentation. True merge, How conflicts are presented and How to resolve conflicts
For example, the base contains
threshold=5; one side changes it to 7 and the other to 9. Choosing either value or a new value requires understanding the intended behavior. After editing the combined result, the resolver records that decision in version control. A textually conflict-free merge can still break a function's contract, so successful automatic combination supplies weaker evidence than software testing of the integrated program. Articles by others on the same topic
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