How Do I Resolve Merge Conflicts in a Git Repository

Git is a popular version control system used by developers worldwide.

When working with Git, it’s not uncommon to encounter merge conflicts.

Merge conflicts occur when two or more branches in a Git repository have changes to the same lines of code.

In this tutorial, we will discuss how to resolve merge conflicts in a Git repository.

Understanding Merge Conflicts in Git

A Git repository is made up of different branches, and each branch has its own set of changes.

When you merge two branches, Git combines the changes from each branch into a single branch.

However, if both branches have changes to the same lines of code, Git won’t know which changes to keep.

This results in a merge conflict.

Steps to Resolve Merge Conflicts in Git

To resolve merge conflicts in Git, you’ll need to follow these steps:

Identify the conflicting files

Run the command git status to see which files have merge conflicts.

The output will show which files have conflicts, and the conflicting lines will be marked with <<<<<<<, =======, and >>>>>>>.

Open the conflicting file: Open the file with the conflict in a text editor and locate the lines with <<<<<<<, =======, and >>>>>>>.

Choose the changes to keep

Decide which changes you want to keep and which changes you want to discard.

Delete the lines with <<<<<<<, =======, and >>>>>>>.

Commit the changes

Once you have resolved the conflict, you need to commit the changes to the Git repository.

You can do this by running the command git add <file_name> followed by git commit -m "Resolved conflict".

Code Examples

Here’s a code example to illustrate the steps to resolve merge conflicts in Git.

$ git status
On branch master
Your branch and 'origin/master' have diverged,
and have 1 and 2 different commits each, respectively.
  (use "git pull" to merge the remote branch into yours)

You have unmerged paths.
  (fix conflicts and run "git commit")

Unmerged paths:
  (use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution)

        both modified:   README.md

$ nano README.md

<<<<<<< HEAD
This is my local change
=======
This is the change from the remote branch
>>>>>>> origin/master

$ nano README.md
This is my final change

$ git add README.md
$ git commit -m "Resolved conflict"