Add EMF Compare-like option to "merge all non-conflicting changes"

[eclipse-diffmerge-bot]

The Diff/merge dialog offers no way to quickly merge all non-conflicting changes. I think it could be a good addition.

=> It could be partially done using category filters, but due to ECLIPSE-514781, it is not entirely feasible.

🆔 ECLIPSE-514782 👷 michael.tiller 📅 2017-04-05 🔎 0.7.0

[eclipse-diffmerge-bot]

olivier.constant commented on 2017-06-06

Since ECLIPSE-514781 is now fixed, it can be done the way you suggest either manually or automatically via an "option" (probably a dedicated button). I am unsure, however, that this is what is needed in the general case.

When merging text, the notion of conflict is rather simple. With models, there are "straightforward" conflicts such as deletion vs. modification, concurrent setting of the same non-many property, etc. (cf. the PhD work by K. Altmanninger). You may, however, also have conflicts that arise after impact analysis of the desired merge operation. I fear that a "merge all non-conflicting" button leads the user to believe that what he/she is doing is safe while it may not be.

It seems to me that we should investigate more on conflict analysis, or provide a temporary solution to your need that makes my above statement clear to the user.

michael.tiller commented on 2017-06-07

Great! For "my" need, the fix of 514781 is enough, so I don't think you should think of providing a temporary solution for this ticket (we already implemented our own temporary solution).
I mainly opened these tickets to open the discussion on how to improve the overall product (because the project I'm working on is quite far from production). I understand what you mean about "hidden" conflicts, and honestly I'm not expert enough in the whole merge/model thing to help you much :)