How to resolve merge conflicts in Git repository?

Posted By: Spoike

I want to resolve merge conflicts in my Git repository.

How to do that ?

Solution

Try: git mergetool

It opens a GUI that steps you through each conflict, and you get to choose how to merge. Sometimes it requires a bit of hand editing afterwards, but usually it’s enough by itself. It is much better than doing the whole thing by hand certainly.

As per @JoshGlover comment:

The command

doesn’t necessarily open a GUI unless you install one. Running git mergetool for me resulted in vimdiff being used. You can install
one of the following tools to use it instead: meld, opendiff,
kdiff3, tkdiff, xxdiff, tortoisemerge, gvimdiff, diffuse,
ecmerge, p4merge, araxis, vimdiff, emerge.

Below is the sample procedure to use vimdiff for resolve merge conflicts. Based on this link

Step 1: Run following commands in your terminal

git config merge.tool vimdiff
git config merge.conflictstyle diff3
git config mergetool.prompt false

This will set vimdiff as the default merge tool.

Step 2: Run following command in terminal

git mergetool

Step 3: You will see a vimdiff display in following format

  ╔═══════╦══════╦════════╗
  ║       ║      ║        ║
  ║ LOCAL ║ BASE ║ REMOTE ║
  ║       ║      ║        ║
  ╠═══════╩══════╩════════╣
  ║                       ║
  ║        MERGED         ║
  ║                       ║
  ╚═══════════════════════╝

These 4 views are

LOCAL – this is file from the current branch

BASE – common ancestor, how file looked before both changes

REMOTE – file you are merging into your branch

MERGED – merge result, this is what gets saved in the repo

You can navigate among these views using ctrl+w. You can directly reach MERGED view using ctrl+w followed by j.

More info about vimdiff navigation here and here

Step 4. You could edit the MERGED view the following way

If you want to get changes from REMOTE

:diffg RE  

If you want to get changes from BASE

:diffg BA  

If you want to get changes from LOCAL

:diffg LO 

Step 5. Save, Exit, Commit and Clean up

:wqa save and exit from vi

git commit -m "message"

git clean Remove extra files (e.g. *.orig) created by diff tool.

Answered By: Peter Burns

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