Merge conflicts why they happen in Git - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Understanding Why Merge Conflicts Happen in Git

📖 Scenario: You are working on a team project using Git. Two team members make changes to the same file but in different branches. You want to understand why Git sometimes cannot automatically combine these changes and shows a merge conflict.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to create a simple Git repository, make changes in two branches that cause a merge conflict, and observe the conflict message Git shows.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Git repository with a file named notes.txt containing specific text

Create a branch named feature and modify notes.txt in it

Switch back to main branch and modify the same line in notes.txt

Attempt to merge feature branch into main and observe the merge conflict message

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Merge conflicts happen often when multiple people work on the same files in a project. Understanding why they happen helps you fix them quickly.

💼 Career

Developers and DevOps engineers must handle merge conflicts daily to keep code working smoothly and avoid losing work.

1

Create initial Git repository and file

Initialize a Git repository and create a file named notes.txt with the exact content: Hello from main branch. Then add and commit this file.

Git

# Initialize git repo and create notes.txt with content
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git init to start the repo. Use echo to write text to notes.txt. Then add and commit the file.

2

Create and switch to feature branch, modify file

Create a new branch called feature and switch to it. Then change the content of notes.txt to Hello from feature branch. Add and commit this change.

Git

git init

echo "Hello from main branch" > notes.txt

git add notes.txt

git commit -m "Initial commit with notes.txt"

# Create and switch to feature branch, modify notes.txt
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git checkout -b feature to create and switch branches. Then modify the file and commit.

3

Switch back to main branch and modify file

Switch back to the main branch. Change the content of notes.txt to Hello from main branch updated. Add and commit this change.

Git

git init

echo "Hello from main branch" > notes.txt

git add notes.txt

git commit -m "Initial commit with notes.txt"

git checkout -b feature

echo "Hello from feature branch" > notes.txt

git add notes.txt

git commit -m "Update notes.txt in feature branch"

# Switch to main branch and update notes.txt
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git checkout main to switch back. Then modify and commit the file.

4

Attempt to merge feature branch into main and observe conflict

Run the command to merge the feature branch into main. Observe the output message that shows a merge conflict in notes.txt.

Git

git init

echo "Hello from main branch" > notes.txt

git add notes.txt

git commit -m "Initial commit with notes.txt"

git checkout -b feature

echo "Hello from feature branch" > notes.txt

git add notes.txt

git commit -m "Update notes.txt in feature branch"

git checkout main

echo "Hello from main branch updated" > notes.txt

git add notes.txt

git commit -m "Update notes.txt in main branch"

# Merge feature branch into main and observe conflict
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git merge feature to merge the feature branch into main. Git will show a conflict message.