Can TortoiseMerge be used as a difftool with Windows Git Bash?

I'm just starting to work with Git. I would like to use TortoiseMerge as the difftool and mergetool.

In my $HOME/.gitconfig I have the following sections. I've removed the user and color sections for this question.

[merge]
    tool = tortoisemerge
[mergetool "tortoisemerge"]
    cmd = \"TortoiseMerge.exe\" -base:\"$BASE\" -mine:\"$LOCAL\" -theirs:\"$REMOTE\" -merged:\"$MERGED\"
[diff]
    tool = tortoisemerge
[difftool "tortoisemerge"]
    cmd = \"TortoiseMerge.exe\" -base:\"$BASE\" -mine:\"$LOCAL\" -theirs:\"$REMOTE\" -merged:\"$MERGED\"

If I type tortoisemerge at the Git Bash prompt it loads. It is known to be on the path. But if I type the command I get the following error.

Rich:mygittest (master *)
$ git difftool
error: 'tortoisemerge' can only be used to resolve merges
merge tool candidates: kompare emerge vimdiff
No known merge resolution program available.
external diff died, stopping at readme.txt.
Rich:mygittest (master *)
$

What am I not understanding to make this work? Tortoisemerge is installed with TortoiseSVN.

The following settings work fine for me. However, I am using TortoiseGit not TortoiseSVN. Notice the difference in the parameters for diff.

[diff]
  tool = tortoisediff
[difftool]
  prompt = false
[merge]
  tool = tortoisemerge
[mergetool]
  prompt = false
  keepBackup = false
[difftool "tortoisediff"]
  cmd = \""c:/Program Files/TortoiseGIT/bin/TortoiseGitMerge.exe"\" -mine "$REMOTE" -base "$LOCAL"
[mergetool "tortoisemerge"]
  cmd = \""c:/Program Files/TortoiseGIT/bin/TortoiseGitMerge.exe"\" -base "$BASE" -theirs "$REMOTE" -mine "$LOCAL" -merged "$MERGED"

So that filenames with spaces are handled correctly, you should change the last line of @melbourn's answer to

cmd = \""c:/Program Files/TortoiseGIT/bin/TortoiseGitMerge.exe"\" -base "$BASE" -theirs "$REMOTE" -mine "$LOCAL" -merged "$MERGED"

This is a simpler way, just run these commands in git bash:

git config --global merge.tool tortoisemerge

git config --global diff.tool tortoisediff
git config --global difftool.tortoisediff.cmd "TortoiseGitMerge \$LOCAL \$REMOTE"

It's done.

----for futher reading----

There are other settings you may need:

# you may want to disable prompt or merge backup
git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false
git config --global difftool.prompt false
git config --global mergetool.prompt false

# set the path only when it's not found in system path
git config --global mergetool.tortoisemerge.path "C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin\TortoiseGitMerge.exe" 
git config --global difftool.tortoisdiff.path "C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin\TortoiseGitMerge.exe"

To set the mergetool, you just need to set the right mergetool name. It's official supported.

Git for windows installer includes a shell file for running tortoisegitmerge as a merge tool. It locates at C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\libexec\git-core\mergetools. (Git provides 4 variables for merging: $BASE $LOCAL $REMOTE $MERGED, you can check them in the shell file.)

You can check all supported merge/diff tools supported on your machine with the command:

git difftool --tool-help
git mergetool --tool-help

Run tortoisegitmerge as git diff tool is not official supported by git, maybe it's because this tool doesn't support directory compare (git difftool -d). So you need to config the difftool cmd to use it as a git difftool.

The tortoisegitmerge tool has a manual at:
https://tortoisegit.org/docs/tortoisegitmerge/tme-automation.html
You can find the simplest way to do file diff is:
TortoiseGitMerge BaseFilePath MyFilePath [ TheirFilePath ]

Can TortoiseMerge be used as a difftool with Windows Git Bash?

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