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MERGE(1)                                       General Commands Manual                                       MERGE(1)



NAME
       merge - three-way file merge

SYNOPSIS
       merge [ options ] file1 file2 file3

DESCRIPTION
       merge  incorporates  all  changes  that  lead from file2 to file3 into file1.  The result ordinarily goes into
       file1.  merge is useful for combining separate changes to an original.  Suppose file2  is  the  original,  and
       both file1 and file3 are modifications of file2.  Then merge combines both changes.

       A  conflict occurs if both file1 and file3 have changes in a common segment of lines.  If a conflict is found,
       merge normally outputs a warning and brackets the conflict with <<<<<<< and >>>>>>> lines.  A typical conflict
       will look like this:

              <<<<<<< file A
              lines in file A
              =======
              lines in file B
              >>>>>>> file B

       If there are conflicts, the user should edit the result and delete one of the alternatives.

OPTIONS
       -A     Output  conflicts using the -A style of diff3(1), if supported by diff3.  This merges all changes lead‐
              ing from file2 to file3 into file1, and generates the most verbose output.

       -E, -e These options specify conflict styles that  generate  less  information  than  -A.   See  diff3(1)  for
              details.  The default is -E.  With -e, merge does not warn about conflicts.

       -L label
              This option may be given up to three times, and specifies labels to be used in place of the correspond‐
              ing file names in conflict reports.  That is, merge -L x -L y -L z a b c generates  output  that  looks
              like it came from files x, y and z instead of from files a, b and c.

       -p     Send results to standard output instead of overwriting file1.

       -q     Quiet; do not warn about conflicts.

       -V     Print RCS's version number.

DIAGNOSTICS
       Exit status is 0 for no conflicts, 1 for some conflicts, 2 for trouble.

IDENTIFICATION
       Author: Walter F. Tichy.
       Manual Page Revision: 5.9.0; Release Date: 2014-06-10.
       Copyright © 2010-2013 Thien-Thi Nguyen.
       Copyright © 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Paul Eggert.
       Copyright © 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.

SEE ALSO
       diff3(1), diff(1), rcsmerge(1), co(1).

       The  full  documentation for RCS is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info(1) and RCS programs are prop‐
       erly installed at your site, the command


GNU RCS 5.9.0                                         2014-06-10                                             MERGE(1)