Understanding Merge Conflicts
What are Merge Conflicts?
Merge conflicts occur in Git when two branches have made different changes to the same part of a file, making it impossible for Git to automatically merge the changes. This typically happens during collaborative development when multiple developers work on the same codebase simultaneously.
graph TD
A[Branch A] --> C{Merge Attempt}
B[Branch B] --> C
C --> |Conflict| D[Manual Resolution Needed]
Common Scenarios Causing Merge Conflicts
| Scenario |
Description |
Likelihood |
| Simultaneous Edits |
Multiple developers edit same line |
High |
| Feature Branch Divergence |
Long-running branches with separate changes |
Medium |
| Refactoring |
Structural code modifications |
High |
Practical Example on Ubuntu 22.04
Let's demonstrate a merge conflict scenario using Git:
## Create a new repository
mkdir conflict-demo && cd conflict-demo
git init
## Create initial file
echo "Hello World" > example.txt
git add example.txt
git commit -m "Initial commit"
## Create two branches with conflicting changes
git checkout -b feature-branch
echo "Feature modification" > example.txt
git commit -am "Feature branch change"
git checkout main
echo "Main branch modification" > example.txt
git commit -am "Main branch change"
## Attempt merge
git merge feature-branch
In this example, both branches modify the same file, triggering a merge conflict. The key aspects of git merge conflicts include identifying divergent changes and preparing for manual intervention.
