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GIT: Inexplicable merge conflict produced when when lines next to each other are changed

+2 votes
328 views

I posted this question to StackOverflow a while ago but no one answered it so I thought I'd try here.

Let's say I have a file with this content in master:

_____
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4 
_____

Now say I create and checkout a new branch called Test. In this branch I change the file to this:

_____
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3 Modified
Line 4 
_____

and I commit this and switch back to master. In master I change the file to:

_____
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4 Modified 
_____

and I commit. Now if I merge branch Test into master, I get a conflict.

Why can't git auto resolve this, as those are two entirely independent lines? If I tell git to edit conflicts using BeyondCompare as the difftool, BeyondCompare autoresolves this without even telling the user, since this isn't a real conflict (other merge tools we use at our company do so also). Is there a way to get git to autoresolve these?

I've tried the recursive and resolve merge strategies but neither do it.

It's an issue in our company because there are certain files where multiple developers change lines in close proximity and this causes many unnecessary conflicts when they pull.

posted Apr 28, 2015 by anonymous

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