Wrapper for merging with vim. Handles 2- and 3-way merges, also git merges with RCS conflict markers.
Vimmerge is just one script, so you can install by downloading to any directory in the path. For example:
cd /usr/local/bin
sudo curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/agriffis/vimmerge/master/vimmerge
sudo chmod +x vimmerge
The screencast above demonstrates using vimmerge with git:
git merge branch # conflicts!
git status # find a file that's in conflict
vimmerge filename
At this point you have two windows in vim, just as you would have with vimdiff. One window is the conflicts from the merge, the other window is your file. You can use window movement keys and diff commands to resolve the conflicts, then write out your file when you're done.
If you :qa! (quit without writing) then nothing is modified on disk.
Git has a slightly more sophisticated approach to merges using the mergetool command, which automates some of the flow. Vimmerge works well as git mergetool. Here's the config:
git config --global merge.tool vimmerge
git config --global mergetool.vimmerge.cmd 'vimmerge \"$MERGED\"'
You might also want this to avoid .orig files littering your working
tree:
git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false
Now when you merge with conflicts, it's a bit more streamlined:
git merge branch # conflicts!
git mergetool # runs vimmerge in sequence on conflicting files
As it works without mergetool, you now have two windows in vim. One window is the conflicts from the merge, the other window is your file. You can use window movement keys and diff commands to resolve the conflicts, then write out your file when you're done.
If you :qa! (quit without writing) then nothing is modified on disk.
This script is pretty flexible and varies depending on the command-line arguments. Two-way merges look like this:
vimmerge one two # same as vimdiff
vimmerge one two -w three # like vimdiff, with output to new file
Three-way merges are where it gets interesting, because you have a base that's a common ancestor of the conflicting files. By default the file ordering is the same as diff3, but unlike diff3 it saves the results in "mine" by default:
vimmerge mine older yours
To write to a new file, use -w:
vimmerge -w merged mine older yours
You can also use explicit arguments for the files, rather than relying on order:
vimmerge -o older -y yours -m mine -w merged
Some calling programs insist on blindly passing the files in a certain
order. You can use --order to work around those:
vimmerge --order oymw older yours mine merged