Git – Resolve Merge Conflicts

Many time, when we do git push/pull or git merge, we end up with conflicts.

In most cases, solution to merge-conflict is as simple as discarding local changes or remote/other branch changes.

Following is useful in those cases…

Resolving merge conflicts

Find files with merge conflict

Change working directory to project folder.

cd project-folder

Search for all conflicting files.

grep -lr '<<<<<<<' .

Above will list all files which has marker special marker <<<<<<< in them.

Resolve easy/obvious conflicts

At this point you may review each files. If solution is to accept local/our version, run:

git checkout --ours PATH/FILE

If solution is to accept remote/other-branch version, run:

git checkout --theirs PATH/FILE

If you have multiple files and you want to accept local/our version, run:

grep -lr '<<<<<<<' . | xargs git checkout --ours

If you have multiple files and you want to accept remote/other-branch version, run:

grep -lr '<<<<<<<' . | xargs git checkout --theirs

For complex conflicts

For files that needs manual review/edit, use vim or any text editor to resolve differences.

Make sure you run git add FILENAME for files edited using vim.

Finally, review if all files are ready for commit using  git status

And run git commit -am "MSG" followed by optional git push