exercises/egit/git/merge-rebase-and-resolving-conflicts.txt

== Merge, Rebase and resolving Conflicts
In this exercise you will learn how to combine the work done in
different branches and how to resolve the conflicts which can occur
during that process.

=== Preparation
Follow exercise 2, link:develop-a-feature.html[Develop a feature/bug fix],
to create a commit on a feature branch based on the remote tracking
branch 'origin/master'.

=== Create a Conflicting commit
You may skip this step if you have already created conflicting changes
in the previous exercises. This is the case if you touched exactly the
same line of the same file in different feature branches. If this is
not the case please do the following:

* Create a new local branch based on the remote tracking branch
  'origin/master'
* You may create the new branch from the History View:
** Select the project, then click 'Show In > History'
   (Some views, e.g. in the Java EE-Perspective, do not have this
   shortcut, in this case use 'Team > Show in History')
** In the History View click all toggle buttons as shown in the
   screenshot (Link with Editor and Selection, Show all changes in
   repository containing the selected resources, Compare Mode,
   Show all Branches and Tags)
+
image:history-view-2.png[History View]

** Select 'Create Branch...' from the context menu on the commit where
   'origin/master' points to
+
image:create-branch-from-history-view.png[Create Branch from History View]

* Or you may do that from the Repositories View:
+
Select the remote tracking branch 'origin/master' and click 'Create
Branch...'.
+
image:create-branch-from-repositories-view.png[Create Branch from Repositories View]

* Do a different change in the same class on the same line as in the
  other branch (e.g. you may add a class 'Multiply' and add a
  corresponding line to method 'setupDefaultOperations' in the
  'Calculator' class) and commit this change.
+
image:history-view-4.png[History View]

=== Merge the feature branches
Now you would like to have both new features in the master branch.
One possibility to achieve that is to merge the branches into the
master branch, one after the other. Later in this exercise you will
learn another way, link:#rebase[rebasing].

==== Trigger the first merge from the history view

* Ensure that you have checked out the branch 'master' where you want
  to have the merged state, i.e. where the merge commit will be
  created, either by double clicking in the Repositories View, or by
  selecting 'Checkout' in the History View, or by using
  'Team > Switch To > master', or using the 'Checkout' button in the
  Git tool bar.
* In the History View, select 'Merge' in the context menu of the
  'addDivideOperation' branch. This will merge the content of the
  'addDivdeOperation' branch into the 'master' branch. Since there
  was no work done on the 'master' branch and 'addDivideOperation'
  points to a successor commit of the commit in 'master' there is not
  much to do. Git simply advances the 'master' branch to the same
  commit as the 'addDivideOperation' branch. Inspect this in the
  History View.
+
image:merge.png[Merge]
+
image:fast-forward-merge.png[Fast Forward Merge]

==== Trigger the second merge
* In the History View, select 'Merge' in the context menu of the
  branch which contains the conflicting commit. This will merge the
  content of this branch into the 'master' branch. This time expect
  that the merge operation ends with conflicts.
+
image:merge-2.png[Merge]
+
image:merge-with-conflicts.png[Merge with Conflicts]

[[resolve-conflicts]]
==== Resolving merge conflicts
If a merge generates conflicts the repository is in a special state.
The conflicts have to be resolved until normal work can go on.

You can find the conflicting files by the conflict decorator in the
package explorer:

image:conflict-markers.png[Conflict Markers]

If there are many conflicts it may be easier to find them in the Git
Staging View:

image:conflicts-in-staging-view.png[Conflicts in Staging View]

* If you open the conflicting file in an editor you will find the
conflict markers there. You can directly edit the file here.
+
image:conflict-markers-2.png[Conflict Markers]

* You may use the Merge tool to resolve the conflicts:
+
'Select Team > Merge Tool'. You will see a dialog where you can
configure the initial state of the left hand side of the editor.
Which one you choose depends on your preference. In the first case
you’ll already get the state which was merged by git, in the second
case you get the version before the merge operation. Thus the first
option is useful if git could already merge most of the changes
automatically and only a small number of conflicts is left. With the
second option will get a better overview of the changes in both
branches.
+
image:merge-mode.png[Merge Mode]
+
image:merge-tool.png[Merge Tool]
+
Edit the left side until you are happy with the change and save.
+
image:merge-tool-resolved-conflict.png[Merge Tool with resolved conflict]

* Now in the Package Explorer select 'Team > Add' on the files which
  had conflicts. When you have done it for all such files the
  repository state changes from 'Conflicts' to 'Merged'. You can also
  use the Git Staging View to do this in one step for all files by
  drag and drop.
* Select 'Team > Commit' or press the 'Commit' button in the Git
  Staging View. Note that there is already a commit message proposed
  by Git. Leave it as it is (if you want to push the commit to Gerrit
  a Change-Id line must be included into the commit message, not
  needed for this exercise).

=== Undo merging with Reset
After you have done a merge as described above assume that you do not
want the merge commit in your branch anymore. You can easily undo the
merge with the Reset operation. (The same can also be done if the
merge is not finished but your repository is in state 'Conflicting'
or 'Merged').

* Select 'Reset > Hard' on the commit where the branch pointed to
  before you did the second merge.
+
image:reset.png[Reset]

* In case you do that when you have an unfinished merge the screenshot
  looks like this:
+
image:reset-2.png[Reset]

[[rebase]]
=== Rebase
Now do a rebase of the conflicting commit instead of a merge.

* In the History View, select 'Rebase on Top of' on the second feature
  branch (the first one is checked out):
+
image:rebase.png[Rebase]

* The rebase stops because of a conflict. You see a dialog:
+
image:rebase-with-conflicts.png[Rebase with Conflicts]

* Click 'OK' to start the merge tool.
* Click 'OK' to start conflict resolution (using pre-merged option).
+
image:merge-mode.png[Merge Mode]
+
image:merge-tool-2.png[Merge Tool]

* Edit the left side until you are happy with the change and save
+
image:merge-tool-resolved-conflict-2.png[Merge Tool with resolved conflict]

* Now select 'Team > Add' on the files which had conflicts. You can
  also use the Git Staging View to do this in one step by drag and
  drop
* In the Repositories View select your repository and click
  'Rebase > Continue'
+
image:rebase-continue.png[Rebase Continue]

* Now the version graph should look like this:
+
image:history-view-5.png[History View]
+
Note that there is a reference 'ORIG_HEAD' pointing to the commit
which was checked out before the rebase operation. You may revert the
rebase operation with reset as described above.

You may hide the additional references such as 'ORIG_HEAD' and
'FETCH_HEAD' from the History View by disabling 'Show' > 'Additional
Refs' in the drop-down menu.

image:show-additional-refs.png[Show Additional Refs]


link:index.html[Git Exercises]