usbu...@mailbox.org writes: > I'm rather confused about --ff, --no-ff and --ff-only. They seam > to be all mutual exclusive...
A clean result left by "git merge" can be either a fast-forward, or a real merge (i.e. 2 possible outcomes). The --ff option lets you say "If the other history I am attempting to merge is a descendant of the current commit, not creating a real merge and instead fast-forwarding is permitted". As this is the default, case you actually type --ff on the command line is rather limited (e.g. to countermand an earlier --no-ff on the command line). The --no-ff option lets you say "I never accept a fast-forward as the result; please make a real merge instead, even if it is redundant". The --ff-only option lets you say "I never accept a real merge as the result; please fail if this does not fast-forward". So, the only "real" options are between --[no-]ff (which allows or disallows one of the two possible outcomes, which is "fast-forward") and [--ff-only] (which allows or disallows the other one of the two possible outcomes, which is "real merge").
