Operation-based merging

Existing approaches for merging the results of parallel development activities are limited. These approaches can be characterised as state-based: only the initial and final states are considered. This paper introduces operation-based merging, which uses the operations that were performed during development. In many cases operation-based merging has advantages over state-based merging, because it automatically respects the data-type invariants of the objects, is extensible for arbitrary object types, provides better conflict detection and allows for better support for solving these conflicts. Several algorithms for conflict detection are described and compared.