Resolving Git merge conflicts

20 Jan 2020

In an ideal world

I am about to add new feature or resolve some bugs. So I create a branch.
git checkout -b branch101

I make the necessary code changes and commit. I then ensure that this local branch is at par with master.
git fetch origin
git pull --rebase origin master

 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up to date.

git push origin branch101 and submit Merge Request with master.

After MR is merged, ensure your local master is up-to-date
git checkout master
git pull

Optionally, delete feature/bug branch locally
git branch -d branch101
and on remote git push -d origin branch101
Or if branch was deleted directly in remote
git remote prune origin

In a not so ideal world

I follow the same steps as above but when I try to pull in master, I get a merge conflict.

$ git pull origin master --rebase
From https://somewhere.github.com/testrepo
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Auto-merging somefile.txt
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in somefile.txt
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.

I have a couple of ways to get out of this mess.

  • Use git mergetool and attempt to resolve the conflicts in vimdiff/diffmerge or something similar.
  • Or if the conflicts are too huge, I have to save my changes somewhere and start fresh with master’s copy of the conflicting file. 
    # First ensure your changes to the conflicting files are kept safely (in a separate branch/directory)
# Keep the remote's (master) version of the file(s)
git checkout --ours somefile.txt
# For multiple files git checkout --ours .
git add somefile.txt
git commit -m "MERGE CONFLICT. Starting fresh with master's version of file"

    Note: master’s version = --ours, your branch’s version = --theirs
    Now painstakingly add in your changes to the files, commit and push.

References:

 git

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