Subject: [PATCH v2] merge-options.txt: correct wording of --no-commit option

From: Elijah Newren <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2019 09:07:09 -0800

The former wording implied that --no-commit would always cause the
merge operation to "pause" and allow the user to make further changes
and/or provide a special commit message for the merge commit.  This
is not the case for fast-forward merges, as there is no merge commit
to create.  Without a merge commit, there is no place where it makes
sense to "stop the merge and allow the user to tweak changes"; doing
that would require a full rebase of some sort.

Since users may be unaware of whether their branches have diverged or
not, modify the wording to correctly address fast-forward cases as well
and suggest using --no-ff with --no-commit if the point is to ensure
that the merge stops before completing.

Reported-by: Ulrich Windl <[email-masked]>
Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <[email-masked]>
---
Changes since v1:
  - Tweaked commit message

 Documentation/merge-options.txt | 12 +++++++++---
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/merge-options.txt b/Documentation/merge-options.txt
index c2a263ba74..d1061b8cf7 100644
--- a/Documentation/merge-options.txt
+++ b/Documentation/merge-options.txt
@@ -3,9 +3,15 @@
 	Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can
 	be used to override --no-commit.
 +
-With --no-commit perform the merge but pretend the merge
-failed and do not autocommit, to give the user a chance to
-inspect and further tweak the merge result before committing.
+With --no-commit perform the merge and stop just before creating
+a merge commit, to give the user a chance to inspect and further
+tweak the merge result before committing.
++
+Note that fast-forward updates do not need to create a merge
+commit and therefore there is no way to stop those merges with
+--no-commit.  Thus, if you want to ensure your branch is not
+changed or updated by the merge command, use --no-ff with
+--no-commit.
 
 --edit::
 -e::
-- 
2.21.0.rc1.264.g6c9e06a32d