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Merge Conflicts

Merge conflicts happen all the time, and knowing how to resolve them is one of the most important skills a software engineer should have.

In this scenario, Feature A has been approved and merged into the main branch. However, there is some code in Feature A that is incompatible with Feature B, which means that Feature B cannot be directly merged in. The developer who worked on Feature B will now have to account for those changes.

Resolve the merge conflict

Student B

  1. Use git branch to confirm that you are still on the feature-B branch.
  2. Run git fetch origin main:main to update your local main branch with the changes on the remote main branch.
  3. Run git merge main to merge in the changes from the main branch into the current feature branch. You will run into a conflict! The error message will tell you which file needs to be fixed. In this example, you will need to fix README.md.
  4. In README.md, you will see merge conflict syntax. Read more this syntax in step 5 of GitHub's guide on merge conflicts.
  5. VS Code provides some helpful tooling to resolve merge conflicts. In this example, select Accept Both Changes, which will remove the merge conflict markers.
  6. Save your changes to README.md.
  7. In the terminal, run git add README.md and git commit without a message. An editor will appear with a default merge message. You can simply close it.
  8. Run git push to update the remote feature branch with your fixes.

Approve the updated PR

Once Student B has pushed their changes, their pull request will be automatically updated on GitHub!

Student A should follow the steps in the previous section to approve and merge Student B's pull request. If there is a Student C, then Student C should do this instead.

Congrats! You've just resolved your first merge conflict!

Student C

If you are in a team of 3, then Student C should now repeat the steps that student B just did to resolve the merge conflict. Student A should review.

In summary:

  1. Student B reviews and merges Student A's PR.
  2. Student B fixes their own PR.
  3. Student C reviews and merges Student B's PR.
  4. Student C fixes their own PR.
  5. Student A reviews and merges Student C's PR.

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