Git: false merge conflicts?

Question

I've been using git for a few years, and every once in a while when doing a merge, git reports some bizarre conflicts. Here's an example of an .htaccess file, from when I merged in the new 7.24 release of Drupal core: ``` # Protect files and directories from prying eyes. <<<<<<< HEAD Order allow,deny # Hide important scripts from malicious users. ======= >>>>>>> 7.24 Order allow,deny ``` How is there a conflict here? It's not even a potential case of whitespace/endline differences: there's simply nothing in the 7.24 section of the conflict. Why is git complaining about this? I'm probably misunderstanding something fundamental...

Accepted Answer

You can’t detemine the conflict looking only at two sides. A conflict occurs when both sides make different changes from the common ancestor.

The fact that there is “nothing” on one side doesn’t matter - there was something in the ancestor, and both sides changed it.

You can get more data about the conflict by showing the ancestor in conflict files; you can set:

```
git config merge.conflictstyle diff3
```

Which will show you all three sides of the conflict.

Git: false merge conflicts?

Solution

Problem