What is the overall effect achieved when performing a merge operation in the Git version control system?

In Git, the merge operation combines changes from one branch into another. The final result is a new commit that contains the combined changes of both branches, preserving the development history.

If there are no conflicts between the changes in the branches, Git automatically merges them. If conflicts exist, they must be resolved manually.

Example:

• There is a feature branch with new changes.
• You run git checkout main and then git merge feature.
• The main branch receives all changes from feature.

Thus, merge allows integrating parallel work into a single project history.