git-mediate

Introduction

Handling conflicts is difficult!

One useful way to handle them, is to use git’s {z,}diff3 conflict style:

git config --global merge.conflictstyle zdiff3

And then when you get a conflict, it looks like:

Unconflicted stuff

<<<<<<< HEAD
Version A changes
|||||||
Base version
======= Version B
Version B changes
>>>>>>>

More unconflicted stuff here

Then you are supposed to manually merge the useful changes in the top and bottom parts, relative to the base version.

A useful way to do this is to figure out which of the changes (Version A or Version B) is a simpler change.

Perhaps one of the versions just added a small comment above the code section:

Unconflicted stuff

<<<<<<< HEAD
Added a comment here
BASE
|||||||
BASE
======= Version B
BASE and complex changes here
>>>>>>>

More unconflicted stuff here

One easy thing to do, mechanically, is to apply the simple change to the other 2 versions. Thus, it becomes:

Unconflicted stuff

<<<<<<< HEAD
Added a comment here
BASE
|||||||
Added a comment here
BASE
======= Version B
Added a comment here
BASE and complex changes here
>>>>>>>

More unconflicted stuff here

Now, you can run this little utility: git-mediate, which will see the conflict has become trivial (only one side changed anything) and select that side appropriately.

When all conflicts have been resolved in a file, “git add” will be used on it automatically.

Simpler case

You might just resolve the conflicts manually and remove the merge markers from all of the conflicts.

In such a case, just run git-mediate, and it will “git add” the file for you.

Installation

Using package managers

• macOS: brew install git-mediate
• Linux (debian): apt-get install git-mediate
• Linux (arch): yay -S git-mediate (see https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/git-mediate)

Using haskell-stack

1. Install haskell stack
2. Run: stack install git-mediate

From sources

Clone it:

git clone https://github.com/Peaker/git-mediate
cd git-mediate

Option #1: Build & install using stack: stack install (make sure you installed haskell stack)

Option #2: Build & install using cabal: cabal install (make sure ~/.cabal/bin is in your $PATH)

Use

Call the git-mediate from a git repository with conflicts.

Additional features

Open editor

You can use the -e flag to invoke your $EDITOR on every conflicted file that could not be automatically resolved.

Show conflict diffs

Sometimes, the conflict is just a giant block of incomprehensible text next to another giant block of incomprehensible text.

You can use the -d flag to show the conflict in diff-from-base form. Then, you can manually apply the changes you see in both the base and wherever needed, and use git-mediate again to make sure you’ve updated everything appropriately.

License

Copyright (C) 2014-2024 Eyal Lotem

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License only.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.