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Restructure documentation for git-merge-base.
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Restructure the text of git-merge-base to better explain more clearly
the different modes of operation.

Signed-off-by: Vincent van Ravesteijn <vfr@lyx.org>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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Jonathan Nieder authored and Junio C Hamano committed Apr 15, 2011
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Showing 1 changed file with 16 additions and 12 deletions.
28 changes: 16 additions & 12 deletions Documentation/git-merge-base.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -23,23 +23,21 @@ that does not have any better common ancestor is a 'best common
ancestor', i.e. a 'merge base'. Note that there can be more than one
merge base for a pair of commits.

Unless `--octopus` is given, among the two commits to compute the merge
base from, one is specified by the first commit argument on the command
line; the other commit is a (possibly hypothetical) commit that is a merge
across all the remaining commits on the command line. As the most common
special case, specifying only two commits on the command line means
computing the merge base between the given two commits.
OPERATION MODE
--------------

As the most common special case, specifying only two commits on the
command line means computing the merge base between the given two commits.

More generally, among the two commits to compute the merge base from,
one is specified by the first commit argument on the command line;
the other commit is a (possibly hypothetical) commit that is a merge
across all the remaining commits on the command line.

As a consequence, the 'merge base' is not necessarily contained in each of the
commit arguments if more than two commits are specified. This is different
from linkgit:git-show-branch[1] when used with the `--merge-base` option.

OPTIONS
-------
-a::
--all::
Output all merge bases for the commits, instead of just one.

--octopus::
Compute the best common ancestors of all supplied commits,
in preparation for an n-way merge. This mimics the behavior
Expand All @@ -52,6 +50,12 @@ OPTIONS
from any other. This mimics the behavior of 'git show-branch
--independent'.

OPTIONS
-------
-a::
--all::
Output all merge bases for the commits, instead of just one.

DISCUSSION
----------

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