Document what the stage numbers in the :$n:path syntax mean. The git-rev-parse manpage talks about the :$n:path notation (buried deep in a list of other syntax) but it just says $n is a "stage number" -- someone who is not familiar with the internals of git's merge implementation is never going to be able to figure out that "1", "2", and "3" means. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
diff --git a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt index 4b4d229..4758c33 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
@@ -215,7 +215,10 @@ * A colon, optionally followed by a stage number (0 to 3) and a colon, followed by a path; this names a blob object in the index at the given path. Missing stage number (and the colon - that follows it) names an stage 0 entry. + that follows it) names an stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage + 1 is the common ancestor, stage 2 is the target branch's version + (typically the current branch), and stage 3 is the version from + the branch being merged. Here is an illustration, by Jon Loeliger. Both node B and C are a commit parents of commit node A. Parent commits are ordered