Falling back / 3-way messages in rebase

Question

When I rebase on the remote tracking branch for master, I get the following message

$ git rebase origin/master
First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it...
Applying: 'XXX'
Using index info to reconstruct a base tree...
Falling back to patching base and 3-way merge...

What does "patching base" mean here? Are 3-way merges done on a file by file basis? Is there any way to disable them?

Answer 1

It is a technical message, which shouldn't bother you.

The important thing is to see :

• if git tells you that there is a merge conflict : git will stop with an explicit message right afterwards,
• or if it managed to apply the changes and proceed : git will proceed with its regular progress messages until the "successfully rebased x ..." message appears.