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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/automatic_conflict_resolution.mdwn')
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1 files changed, 23 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/automatic_conflict_resolution.mdwn b/doc/automatic_conflict_resolution.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f20138b19 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/automatic_conflict_resolution.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +Running `git annex sync` or using the [[assistant]] involves merging +changes from elsewhere into your repository's currently checked out branch. +This could lead to a merge conflict, perhaps because the same file +got changed in two different ways. A nice feature is that these +merge conflicts are automatically resolved, rather than leaving +git in the middle of a conflicted merge, which would prevent further +syncing from happening. + +When a conflict occurs, there will be several messages printed about the merge +conflict, and the file that has the merge conflict will be renamed, with +".variant-XXX" tacked onto it. So if there are two versions of file foo, +you might end up with "foo.variant-AAA" and "foo.variant-BBB". It's then +up to you to decide what to do with these two files. Perhaps you can +manually combine them back into a single file. Or perhaps you choose to +rename them to better names and keep two versions, or delete one version +you don't want. + +The "AAA" and "BBB" in the above example are essentially arbitrary +(technically they are the MD5 checksum of the key). The automatic merge +conflict resoltuion is designed so that if two or more repositories both get +a merge conflict, and resolve it, the resolved repositories will not +themselves conflict. This is why it doesn't use something nicer, like +perhaps the name of the remote that the file came from. |