Ive been working on getting tortoisemerge working as the difftool option in Git with my .gitconfig file currently showing :
[diff]
tool = tortoise
[difftool "tortoise"]
cmd = tortoisemerge.exe -mine:$LOCAL -base:$REMOTE
[difftool]
prompt = false
According to tortoise merge docs the 'mine' command states which file will be shown on the right, in a two way diff.
My question is, what do the LOCAL and REMOTE variables as provided by GIT actually point to? The documentation is a little vague stating that
LOCAL is set to the name of the temporary file containing the contents of the diff pre-image and REMOTE is set to the name of the temporary file containing the contents of the diff post-image.
The problem arises when I modify a file, and then enter 'git difftool' tortoisemerge is started with the working directory file on the LEFT and not the right as I assume. I know I can merely switch the 'mine' and 'local' commands but I was trying to figure out what the local/remote points to and the best way to resolve this issue
I think that means that $LOCAL is always the a/whatever in the diff output, while $REMOTE is the b/whatever. In other words, if you do:
git difftool master experiment -- Makefile
$LOCAL will be a temporary file showing the the state of Makefile in the master branch, while $REMOTE will be a temporary file showing its state in the experiment branch.
If you just run:
git difftool
... that shows you the difference between the index and your working tree, so for each file with differences, $LOCAL will be a temporary file that's the same as the version of the file in the index, while the $REMOTE will be the version of the file in your working tree.