Learn Git in a Month of Lunches : merging conflicts

[Carol Zack]

When you merge two branches in git and there are conflicts, how do you go about resolving them, if you're using the command line?
Do you open the files in a text editor, and there are flags where the conflicts are at? I've used version control systems within IDEs where they provide an interface for viewing the conflicts, but I've never had to do this at the command line.

Thanks

[Bear Bibeault]

Yes. The conflicts will be marked with text added to the files.

[Rick Umali]

When you merge in a branch that produces conflicts, Git enumerates the conflicted files.

% git merge branch01 Auto-merging fileA.txt CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in fileA.txt Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.

You can also see this list by typing git status:

% git status On branch master You have unmerged paths. (fix conflicts and run "git commit") Unmerged paths: (use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution) both modified: fileA.txt no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

Finally, on the command line, you can display the file to see the merge conflict markers.

% cat -n fileA.txt 1 Contents 2 ABC 3 DEF 4 <<<<<<< HEAD 5 not so nice 6 ======= 7 GHI 8 >>>>>>> branch01 9 JKL

Git does have a mergetool command that pops open an editor. Also, third-party GUIs make merging conflicts easier.

Good luck!