Git Merge and Conflict Example

For full guide, please refer on :

1. http://githowto.com/creating_a_conflict
2. http://githowto.com/resolving_conflicts

Credit on original author

Case study

In this repo there is three branch

• master
• branch_a (fork from master)
• branch_b (fork from master)

Starting the Chaos : Conflict and Merge

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/todiadiyatmo/resolve_conflict/

# checkout branch_a
git checkout -b local origin/branch_a 

# to merge branch_b
git merge origin/branch_b 

When you merge branch a and b there will be conflict.

Now examine the home.html, which is in conflict

Line 7 (<<<<<<<) is a special code from git to mark the begining of the conflict Line 9 (=======) is the separator between the code from local and remote branch Line 11 (>>>>>>) ending of merge conflict

The code from branch_a is between line 7 and 9. Code from branch_b is between line 9 and 11.

Manualy Resolving Merge Conflict

You can resolve the conflict without tool, just pick the line you want to keep. and delete the :

<<<<<<< HEAD

and

=======

and

>>>>>>> branch_b

For example if we want to use code from branch_b instead of branch_a :

Remove line 7,8,9 + line 11.

To finish the merging process, issue a merge command

git add .
git commit -m "fixed merge conflict,using branch_b"

Resolving Merge Conflict Using Merge Tool

Preparing the merge tool

To easily merge a conflict you will need a good merge tool. Some options in ubuntu/linux is :

• meld
• kdiff3

No make your prefered merge tool as the default merge tool using this command

git config --global merge.tool kdiff3

You can run merge tool by using this command :

git mergetool -t kdiff3

OR

# Assuming you already set the mergetool using global config
git mergetool

This message will appear if you are running git mergetool command :

Merging Using KDiff3

KDiff 3 is my preference mergetool because it has 4 pane

1. Base -> Before Conflict
2. Local -> Your Current Branch
3. Remote -> Remote Branch that you want to merge
4. Combined File

To merge using kdiff3

After you satistfied with your merged file, don't forget issue a save command on the kdiff3

Finnaly, issue a commit command

git add .
git commit -m "fixed merge conflict,using"