git/Documentation/technical/api-merge.txt

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merge API
=========
The merge API helps a program to reconcile two competing sets of
improvements to some files (e.g., unregistered changes from the work
tree versus changes involved in switching to a new branch), reporting
conflicts if found. The library called through this API is
responsible for a few things.
* determining which trees to merge (recursive ancestor consolidation);
* lining up corresponding files in the trees to be merged (rename
detection, subtree shifting), reporting edge cases like add/add
and rename/rename conflicts to the user;
* performing a three-way merge of corresponding files, taking
path-specific merge drivers (specified in `.gitattributes`)
into account.
Data structures
---------------
* `mmbuffer_t`, `mmfile_t`
These store data usable for use by the xdiff backend, for writing and
for reading, respectively. See `xdiff/xdiff.h` for the definitions
and `diff.c` for examples.
* `struct ll_merge_options`
Check ll-merge.h for details.
Low-level (single file) merge
-----------------------------
Check ll-merge.h for details.