This might be answered already but it is hard to search for -- basically,
When patch find a block/hunk unable to apply, it will reject the changed hunk into reject file.
How not to put the conflicts in reject file but include in the final output, just as when git find the conflicts and include both versions in the final output:
$ cat merge.txt
<<<<<<< HEAD
this is some content to mess with
content to append
=======
totally different content to merge later
>>>>>>> new_branch_to_merge_later
GNU patch has a --merge option:
--merge or --merge=merge or --merge=diff3
Merge a patch file into the original files similar to diff3(1)
or merge(1). If a conflict is found, patch outputs a warning
and brackets the conflict with <<<<<<< and >>>>>>> lines. A
typical conflict will look like this:
<<<<<<<
lines from the original file
|||||||
original lines from the patch
=======
new lines from the patch
>>>>>>>
The optional argument of --merge determines the output format
for conflicts: the diff3 format shows the ||||||| section with
the original lines from the patch; in the merge format, this
section is missing. The merge format is the default.
This option implies --forward and does not take the --fuzz=num
option into account.
Strangely I can't find this in the GNU diffutils documentation (where other patch options are documented).
