Resolving conflicts
===================

Workflow
--------

Unlike some other tools that force you to resolve each conflict during
the merge process, Bazaar merges as much as it can and then reports the
conflicts. This can make conflict resolution easier because the contents
of the whole post-merge tree are available to help you decide how things
ought to be resolved. You may also wish to selectively run tests as you go
to confirm each resolution or group or resolutions is good.

Listing conflicts
-----------------

As well as being reported by the ``merge`` command, the list of outstanding
conflicts may be displayed at any time by using the ``conflicts``
command. It is also included as part of the output from the ``status``
command.

Resolving a conflict
--------------------

When a conflict is encountered, the ``merge`` command puts embedded
markers in each file showing the areas it couldn't resolve. It also
creates 3 files for each file with a conflict:

 * foo.BASE
 * foo.THIS
 * foo.OTHER

where ``foo`` is the name of the conflicted file.
In many cases, you can resolve conflicts by simply manually editing
each file in question, fixing the relevant areas and removing the
conflict markers as you go.

After fixing all the files in conflict, and removing the markers, 
ask Bazaar to mark them as resolved using the ``resolve`` command like this::

  bzr resolve

Alternatively, after fixing each file, you can mark it as resolved
like this::

  bzr resolve foo

Among other things, the ``resolve`` command cleans up the BASE,
THIS and OTHER files from your working tree.

Using the remerge command
-------------------------

In some cases, you may wish to try a different merge algorithm on a
given file. To do this, use the ``remerge`` command nominating
the file like this::

  bzr remerge --weave foo

where ``foo`` is the file and ``weave`` is one of the available
merge algorithms. This algorithm is particularly useful when a
so-called ``criss-cross`` merge is detected, e.g. when two branches
merge the same thing then merge each other. See the online help for
``criss-cross`` and ``remerge`` for further details.

Using external tools to resolve conflicts
-----------------------------------------

If you have a GUI tool you like using to resolve conflicts, be sure
to install the *extmerge* plugin. Once installed, it can be used
like this::

  bzr extmerge foo

where ``foo`` is the conflicted file. Rather than provide a list of
files to resolve, you can give the ``--all`` option to implicitly
specify all conflicted files.

The ``extmerge`` command uses the tool specified by the
``external_merge`` setting in your ``bazaar.conf`` file.
If not set, it will look for some popular merge tools such
as ``kdiff3`` or ``opendiff``, the latter being a command
line interface to the FileMerge utility in OS X.
