IntelliJ IDEA 2018.2 Help

Merging Files from Command Line

You can use IntelliJ IDEA as a command line tool for merging files.

Most often you need to merge three versions of the same file: your local version, the version in the repository or in the upstream, and the base revision, which is the origin for the two diverged versions.

  • In the command line, run the merge command using the following syntax:

    <IntelliJ IDEA> merge path1 path2 path3 output

It is also possible to pass only three arguments to the merge tool. In this case, the contents of the output will serve as the base revision.

  • In the command line, run the merge command using the following syntax:

    <IntelliJ IDEA> merge path1 path2 output

The selected files will be opened in the Merge dialog allowing you to accept or discard each change individually.

The command options are as follows:

Option

Description

<IntelliJ IDEA>

The platform-specific IntelliJ IDEA launcher.

On macOS and Linux, it is recommended to use the command-line launcher created during the IntelliJ IDEA installation, or create one manually by selecting Tools | Create Command-line Launcher on the IntelliJ IDEA main menu. Refer to Besides working from within IntelliJ IDEA, you can perform the following actions from the command line: for details.

On Windows, it is recommended to add the path to the IntelliJ IDEA executable to the Path environment variable.

path1

The path to the local copy of the file.

path2

The path to the repository version of the file.

path3

(optional) The path to the base revision for path1 and path2.

output

The path to the file to save the merge results in.

Examples

Syntax
idea.exe merge path1 path2 path3 output
Example
idea.exe merge C:\MyProject\Readme.md.bak C:\MyProject\Readme.md C:\Archive\Readme.md C:\NewProject\Readme.md
Syntax
idea merge path1 path2 path3 output
Example
idea merge ~/MyProject/Readme.md.bak ~/MyProject/Readme.md ~/Archive/Readme.md ~/NewProject/Readme.md
Last modified: 20 November 2018

See Also