title: git partial merge, not whole branch
body: <p>I've read about some tricks with merge in <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1807036/git-merging-public-and-private-branches-while-while-keeping-certain-files-intact">Git: merging public and private branches while while keeping certain files intact in both branches</a> and others and not found a solution.</p>
  
  <p>In my case I'm feeling need to do opposite merge strategy. In parallel development I have to keep some files same across the arbitrary branches. From other side I do not want to do squash or no-commit merge, while difference are significant and could break current state of testing branch. </p>
  
  <p>What I want something like </p>
  
  <p><code>git checkout testing</code></p>
  
  <p><code>git merge config.xml -b development</code> or <code>git merge config\*.xml -b development</code></p>
  
  <p>I guess this is like <code>git merge-files ...</code> command, but second file delivered from the branch, not from the filesystem.
  Is it possible? or may be there is a kind of workaround? submodules? attributes?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>