Hi,

Currently in Iceberg to merge a branch into another, we need to checkout the branch into which we want to merge and then do the merge.

Checking out a branch also updates the code in the image, which when needing to perform automatic releases on a branch can cause issues.

Is there already a way in Iceberg to switch to a branch (for example `release`) and then merge another branch (for example `master`) into it without updating any code in the image?

The use-case is that the user is on the `master` branch and needs to merge `master` into `release` without changing any code in the image.

I found��LGitRepository>>#merge:, but it seems not to be used anywhere in the image.

Another way would be to implement something like the method below. This:

�� - calculates what changes need to be merged

�� - always takes what is on the left branch (in this case what is on master overrides what is on release)

�� - does not call loadChangesInWorkingCopy: to update the working copy as the code is already in the image

�� - refreshes the dirty packages in case there are changes between what is on the image and what is on disk

```

IceMerge>>#executeWithAcceptingLeftOnConflictAndWithoutImageUpdate

| commitToAdvance |

mergeCommit validateCanMerge.

self isAlreadyMerged ifTrue: [ ^ self ].

self calculateChanges.

self conflictsDo: [ :operation |

operation selectLeft.

commitToAdvance := self updateHead.

�� "Do not update the working copy"

"repository workingCopy loadChangesInWorkingCopy: self changesToWorkingCopyTree."

repository workingCopy refreshDirtyPackages.

^ commitToAdvance

```

Could something like the above solution work? Or are there other issues to take into account?

Cheers,

Andrei