 followed by a stage number (0 to 3) and a
colon, followed by a path, names a blob object in the
index at the given path. A missing stage number (and the colon
that follows it) names a stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage
1 is the common ancestor, stage 2 is the target branch&#8217;s version
(typically the current branch), and stage 3 is the version from
the branch which is being merged.</p>
</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Here is an illustration, by Jon Loeliger.  Both commit nodes