Merging in SmartGit
For an overview of general merging techniques in Git, please refer to Merge.
In SmartGit, there are several ways to initiate a merge:
- Menu and toolbar: In the Working Tree window, select Branch | Merge to open the Merge dialog, where you can choose the branch to be merged into the current branch. Depending on your toolbar settings, you can also open this dialog via the Merge button on the toolbar.
- Branches view: In the Branches view (available in both the Working Tree and Log windows), you can right-click on a branch and select Merge to merge the selected branch into the current branch.
- Log Graph: In the Log graph of the Log window, right-click on a commit (usually the one where the branch to be merged points to) and selecting Merge from the context menu.
Regardless of how you invoke the Merge command, you will be given a choice between Create Merge-Commit, Merge to Working Tree, and, if possible, Fast-Forward.
- If you choose Create Merge-Commit, SmartGit will perform the merge and create a merge commit, assuming no merge conflicts exist.
- If you choose Merge to Working Tree, SmartGit will perform the merge but leave the working tree in a merging state, allowing you to resolve conflicts and review changes manually. See the section on Resolving Conflicts for more information.
Resolving Conflicts
When a merge, cherry-pick, revert or rebase command fails due to conflicting changes, SmartGit stops the operation and leaves the working tree conflicted. This allows you to either abort the command, resolve the conflicts, or continue the operation. The following options are available in SmartGit:
- Resolve dialog: Select a file containing conflicts and invoke Local | Resolve from SmartGit’s main window menu. You can set the file’s contents to either of the two conflicting versions (i.e., `Ours’ or `Theirs’). Optionally, you may choose not to stage the resolution, meaning the conflict marker on the file won’t be removed.
- Conflict Solver: Select a file containing conflicts and invoke Query | Conflict Solver, which opens a three-way diff tool for viewing changes between the conflicting versions. See Conflict Solver for details on resolving conflicts using this tool.
- Discard command: To abort the merge, cherry-pick, revert or rebase, select the repository in the Repositories view and invoke Branch | Abort or Local | Discard.
After resolving all conflicts, you can continue with the merge, cherry-pick, or rebase by selecting the repository in the Repositories view and invoking Local | Commit. If you rebase, the Commit toolbar button will change to Continue.