How to Resolve a Merge Conflict

HOWTO Resolve a merge conflict

Step 1: Avoid conflicts in the first place!

• Create issues to be tracked in Github and assign them to yourself so no one else works on the same files
• Work on a feature branch and not on master.
• Communicate with others about which files you are modifying.
• Fetch and merge and diff against remote branches before you commit to your local branches
• Rebase a feature branch to master before you commit to the feature branch
• Rebase a feature branch before you push

Step 2: You failed to avoid the conflict. Now what?

• When you execute the merge, you will see a warning or error like this:
  • Merge conflict for file.txt
• Need to rerun the merge conflict simulation to remind you what is done.
• Use your favorite text editor to remove conflict blocks of text and the git markup symbols
• Once you have made your edits, add and commit just like any other file change:
  • git add problem_file.cpp
  • git status should show that the file is no longer of state "conflicted"
  • git commit problem_file.cpp