Ours vs theirs in conflicts in Git - Hands-On Comparison

Resolving Git Conflicts Using Ours vs Theirs

📖 Scenario: You are working on a team project using Git. Sometimes, when two people change the same file, Git cannot decide which change to keep. This is called a conflict. You will learn how to use ours and theirs strategies to resolve these conflicts.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to create a conflict in Git and resolve it by choosing either your changes (ours) or the other person's changes (theirs).

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Git repository with two branches

Make conflicting changes in the same file on both branches

Use Git commands to resolve conflicts choosing ours or theirs

Verify the final file content after conflict resolution

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

In team projects, conflicts happen when multiple people edit the same files. Knowing how to resolve conflicts quickly keeps the project moving smoothly.

💼 Career

Developers and DevOps engineers must handle merge conflicts daily. Mastering <code>ours</code> and <code>theirs</code> helps avoid mistakes and lost work.

1

Create a Git repository and initial file

Initialize a new Git repository called conflict-demo. Create a file named message.txt with the exact content Hello from main branch. Add and commit this file with the message Initial commit on main.

Git

# Initialize Git repo and create message.txt
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git init to start the repo, echo to create the file, and git add plus git commit to save changes.

2

Create a branch and make conflicting changes

Create a new branch called feature. Switch to it. Change the content of message.txt to Hello from feature branch. Add and commit with the message Update message on feature. Then switch back to main and change message.txt content to Hello from main branch updated. Add and commit with the message Update message on main.

Git

# Create feature branch and commit change
# Switch back to main and commit different change
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git branch and git checkout to switch branches. Use echo to change file content and commit each change.

3

Merge feature into main and resolve conflict using ours

While on the main branch, run git merge feature to create a conflict. Then resolve the conflict by choosing your version (the main branch) using git checkout --ours message.txt. Add the resolved file and commit with the message Resolve conflict using ours.

Git

# Merge feature into main and resolve conflict choosing ours
# Your code here

Need a hint?

After merge conflict, use git checkout --ours to keep your branch's version, then add and commit.

4

Verify the final content of message.txt

Print the content of message.txt using cat message.txt to verify it shows Hello from main branch updated after resolving the conflict with ours.

Git

# Print the content of message.txt
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use cat message.txt to see the file content in the terminal.