Seriously? Another merge error?

I guess I’ll preface this with - Git is great! As a version control tool, Git helps your break your code into manageable chunks for review, track changes in your codebase, and allows for seamless collaboration between multiple individuals.

However, most of the time at work, I am writing code for multiple projects, at once, across multiple repos, and with multiple people. As such, I often find myself in a situation where I now have code for multiple issues that I need to commit all at once, and more often than not, one of them results in a merge error.

Below, I’ll go over some commands that have been able to get me out of 99% of git issues that I’ve had.

Git Basics (What you should be doing)

Of course we’ll start out with what you should be doing so you don’t run into issues in the first place. Use git status liberally to make sure you’re covering all your bases.

1. Merge all differences from origin/master onto your code
You should always start with this!

git fetch origin
git rebase origin/master

2. Create a new branch

git checkout -b feature/my_cool_feature

3. Stage and Commit your changes

git add my_cool_feature.py
git commit -m 'Helping The Man meet his EBITDA goals'

4. Push your changes upstream to origin

git push -u origin feature/my_cool_feature

Fixing your less serious commit error

If you want to change the parameters of your last commit, it is a relatively easy fix using the --amend argument

#Pull up your editor to fix the commit
git commit --amend

#Change author
git commit --amend --author 'Matt Guan <email@email.com>'

#Change message
git commit --amend -m 'New commit message'

Fixing your more serious merge error

Below is the easiest, most full proof way I’ve found for fixing any merge error.
1. First stash your work. Consider backing it up locally too.

git stash
git stash list

2.0. If you managed to commit locally and need to kill it
i.e if your git hosting service requires commits to contain a certain keyword, you committed locally, but you can’t push it upstream

git reset --hard HEAD^

2.1. Nuke your entire branch (Trust me, this is the easiest way)

git reset --hard origin/master

4. Finally, just apply the stash back on like nothing happened

git stash apply stash@{0}

Of course, there are many other ways to fix merge conflicts, but I’ve found this way to be the easy, foolproof, and require the least amount of thought.

If you want some more perspective on fixing git merge errors, these are two links that I’ve personally found helpful.

• A git choose your own adventure!
• Oh shit, git!

And if you want to automate your git workflow and hopefully never run into these issues again, check out my post on git shell scripts

Thanks for reading!