# Verifying Semantic Conflict-Freedom in Three-Way Program Merges

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.06551 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.06551/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 19 Feb 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [ATM: CID-Brokered Pre-Write Admission for Multi-Agent Code Co-Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.00041/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Even though many programmers rely on 3-way merge tools to integrate changes from different branches, such tools can introduce subtle bugs in the integration process. This paper aims to mitigate this problem by defining a semantic notion of confict-freedom, which ensures that the merged program does not introduce new unwanted behaviors. We also show how to verify this property using a novel, compositional algorithm that combines lightweight dependence analysis for shared program fragments and precise relational reasoning for the modifications. We evaluate our tool called SafeMerge on 52 real-world merge scenarios obtained from Github and compare the results against a textual merge tool. The experimental results demonstrate the benefits of our approach over syntactic confict-freedom and indicate that SafeMerge is both precise and practical.