Merge Options

This page lets you specify advanced options, before starting the merge process.

You can specify how far down into your working copy the merge should go by setting the merge depth. The depth term is described in the Sparse checkouts section. The default depth is Working copy, which uses the existing depth setting.

The Ignore ancestry checkbox allows a merge to be applied between a branch and the trunk or between two branches even if they do not share a common ancestry. Normally the branch and the trunk or the two branches that are merged must have a common ancestor revision in the same repository. In case the two merged trees were imported in the repository they are not related in the sense of a common ancestor tree and the merge operation is possible by ignoring the missing common ancestry of the two merged trees.

The Ignore line endings and Ignore whitespaces checkboxes allow you to specify how the line endings and whitespace changes should be handled. If they are checked the changes due only to the line endings and whitespaces are ignored. The default behavior is to treat all whitespace and line-end differences as real changes to be merged. Ignore whitespace changes excludes changes which are caused by a change in the amount or type of whitespace, for example changing the indentation or changing tabs to spaces. Adding whitespace where there was none before, or removing a whitespace completely is still shown as a change. If Ignore all whitespaces is checked all whitespace-only changes are excluded.

If you are using merge tracking support and you want to mark a revision as having been merged, without actually doing the merge here, check the Only record the merge checkbox. You might want to do this for two possible reasons. You make the changes by hand, then mark the change as merged so that the merge tracking algorithm is aware of it. Or you might want to prevent a particular revision from being merged by marking it as already merged. This will prevent future merging.

By pressing the Test merge button you can choose to do a Dry run of the Merge operation in order to see what files are affected and how, without modifying the working copy at all. This is very helpful in detecting where conflicts may occur.

Press the Merge button in order for the operation to take place. You will obtain the result in the selected resource from the working copy.

When the merge is completed it's a good idea to look at the result of the merge and see if it meets your expectations. Because merging is sometimes complicated, when there are major changes, conflicts may appear.