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.
Below is the sample procedure to use vimdiff
for resolve merge conflicts.
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.
- How do I undo ‘git add’ before commit?
- How do I delete a Git branch locally and remotely?
- How do I check out a remote Git branch?
- Git: How do I force “git pull” to overwrite local files?
- How do I check out a remote Git branch?
- How do I undo ‘git add’ before commit?
- How do I undo the most recent local commits in Git?
- How to resolve merge conflicts in a Git repository
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.
Here’s a probable use case, from the top:
You’re going to pull some changes, but oops, you’re not up to date:
git fetch origin
git pull origin master
From ssh://[email protected]:22/projectname
* branch master -> FETCH_HEAD
Updating a030c3a..ee25213
error: Entry 'filename.c' not uptodate. Cannot merge.
So you get up-to-date and try again, but have a conflict:
git add filename.c
git commit -m "made some wild and crazy changes"
git pull origin master
From ssh://[email protected]:22/projectname
* branch master -> FETCH_HEAD
Auto-merging filename.c
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in filename.c
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
So you decide to take a look at the changes:
git mergetool
Oh my, oh my, upstream changed some things, but just to use my changes…no…their changes…
git checkout --ours filename.c
git checkout --theirs filename.c
git add filename.c
git commit -m "using theirs"
And then we try a final time
git pull origin master
From ssh://[email protected]:22/projectname
* branch master -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.
- Identify which files are in conflict (Git should tell you this).
- Open each file and examine the diffs; Git demarcates them. Hopefully it will be obvious which version of each block to keep. You may need to discuss it with fellow developers who committed the code.
- Once you’ve resolved the conflict in a file
git add the_file
. - Once you’ve resolved all conflicts, do
git rebase --continue
or whatever command Git said to do when you completed.