Simple cmd line tool to help resolve git merge conflicts.

It shows the changes made in the current branch (HEAD) vs the changes made in the other branch (MERGE_HEAD), since their common ancestor.

NOTE: Your repo must be configured for "diff3" conflict style (see below for how to do this).

Doesn’t yet work for conflicts which result in a “Temporary merge branch”, sorry.

Say you have a diff3 conflict which looks like this:

cauliflower
<<<<<<< HEAD
peas
potatoes
||||||| merged common ancestors
peas
=======
>>>>>>> topic
tomatoes

git-conflict will give you this output:

which makes it obvious that one branch added potatoes and the other removed peas, so the resolution should probably be:

cauliflower
potatoes
tomatoes

1. Ensure you have "diff3" conflicts enabled:

    $ git config --global merge.conflictstyle diff3
   

2. Copy the git-conflict script to somewhere on your PATH.

3. Make sure it’s executable:

    $ chmod a+x /path/to/git-conflict
   

1. Have yourself a merry little conflict:

    $ git merge conflicting-branch
    Auto-merging path/to/conflicting-file-1
    CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in path/to/conflicting-file-1
    Auto-merging path/to/conflicting-file-2
    CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in path/to/conflicting-file-2
    Auto-merging path/to/conflicting-file-3
    CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in path/to/conflicting-file-3
    ...
   

2. Call git conflict with the path of the first conflict.

    $ git conflict path/to/conflicting-file-1
   

3. You’ll see a beautiful representation of the first conflict in the file only.

   It shows:

   • Changes in HEAD since the common ancestor
   • Changes in MERGE_HEAD since the common ancestor

4. Fix the conflict in conflicting-file-1 and save it.

5. Repeat until all conflicts in this file are resolved, then continue to conflicting-file-2, and so on.

6. Commit, push, celebrate.

The output is generated using git diff. Any additional args you pass to git conflict will be passed on to git diff, e.g.:

$ git conflict path/to/file --word-diff=color

Obviously only some options will make sense, as it only diffs a chunk of a file at a time.

NOTE: By default, the --ignore-all-space option is always added, as this usually makes it easier to work out what’s going on. To disable this behaviour, use the custom --consider-whitespace option:

$ git conflict path/to/file --consider-whitespace

CC0 / Public domain.