Sometimes you want to keep both alternatives for a particular difference. To do this, use x c, which edits the merge buffer like this:

@group
#ifdef NEW
@var{version from B buffer}
#else /* not NEW */
@var{version from A buffer}
#endif /* not NEW */
@end group

@noindent While this example shows C preprocessor conditionals delimiting the two alternative versions, you can specify the strings to use by setting the variable emerge-combine-versions-template to a string of your choice. In the string, %a says where to put version A, and %b says where to put version B. The default setting, which produces the results shown above, looks like this:

@group
"#ifdef NEW\n%b#else /* not NEW */\n%a#endif /* not NEW */\n"
@end group