Git: Merge conflicts on Mac

Branches? Merges? It can be complex.

The use of Git is essential when creating software. As you use it you’ll realise how much of a flexible system it!

Photo by Yancy Min on Unsplash

Prerequisites:

• Some knowledge of the terminal.
• Some previous use of VIM would be advantageous to create, edit and merge files.

Terminology

Git: Git is a distributed version-control system for tracking changes in source code during software development

The step-by-step tutorial, vimdiff

The following process assumes that you are using a Mac, and you are using the terminal. Terminal commands are prefixed with the dollar symbol ($) but is not typed into the command line itself.

Choosing which mergetool to use(this has to be done for each Git repository you initialise!)

$ git config merge.tool vimdiff

By default git displays the two files to be merged. It is usually a good idea to use diff3 to set the editor to display the common ancestor BASE while examining the changes in LOCAL and REMOTE through

$ git config merge.conflictstyle diff3