Download: PDF, slides (Keynote), implementation.
“Evaluation of version control merge tools”
by Benedikt Schesch, Ryan Featherman, Kenneth J. Yang, Ben R. Roberts, and
Michael D. Ernst.
In ASE 2024: Proceedings of the 39th Annual International Conference
on Automated Software Engineering, (Saramento, CA, USA), Oct. 2024,
pp. 831-843.
An appendix appeared as
“Evaluation of Version Control Merge Tools (Appendix)”
by Benedikt Schesch, Ryan Featherman, Kenneth J. Yang, Ben R. Roberts, and
Michael D. Ernst.
University of Washington Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and
Engineering technical report UW-CSE-24-09-01, (Seattle, WA, USA), Sep.
2024.
A version control system, such as Git, requires a way to integrate changes from different developers or branches. Given a merge scenario, a merge tool either outputs a clean integration of the changes, or it outputs a conflict for manual resolution. A clean integration is correct if it preserves intended program behavior, and is incorrect otherwise (e.g., if it causes a test failure). Manual resolution consumes valuable developer time, and correcting a defect introduced by an incorrect merge is even more costly.
New merge tools have been proposed, but they have not yet been evaluated against one another. Prior evaluations do not properly distinguish between correct and incorrect merges, are not evaluated on a realistic set of merge scenarios, and/or do not compare to state-of-the-art tools. We have performed a more realistic evaluation. The results differ significantly from previous claims, setting the record straight and enabling better future research. Our novel experimental methodology combines running test suites, examining merges on deleted branches, and accounting for the cost of incorrect merges.
Based on these evaluations, we created a merge tool that outperforms all previous tools under most assumptions. It handles the most common merge scenarios in practice.
Download: PDF, slides (Keynote), implementation.
BibTeX entry:
@inproceedings{ScheschFYRE2024,
author = {Benedikt Schesch and Ryan Featherman and Kenneth J. Yang and
Ben R. Roberts and Michael D. Ernst},
title = {Evaluation of version control merge tools},
booktitle = {ASE 2024: Proceedings of the 39th Annual International
Conference on Automated Software Engineering},
pages = {831-843},
address = {Saramento, CA, USA},
month = oct,
year = {2024}
}
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