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1372

answers:

3

A co-worker and I are both working on the master branch at the moment. I have some code in my working tree that I don't want to commit (debugging statements and the like). Now if he commits changes to some of those same files, I can't merge them:

$ git merge origin/master
Updating 1b8c5c6..eb44c23
error: Entry 'blah.java' not uptodate. Cannot merge.

Coming from a subversion background, I'm used to having my working tree automatically merged when I pull changes from the repository and if there are conflicts, I resolve them manually.

The quickest way I have found to do this in git is:

$ git stash
$ git merge origin/master
$ git stash pop

Essentially, removing my uncommitted changes, doing the merge and then re-applying the changes. How can I tell merge to automatically merge my working tree with the changes I'm trying to pull in?

+2  A: 

As far as I can tell, the best you can do is what you already have with git stash. I too find it strange that merge wants to deal only with clean trees.

Norman Ramsey
I shall put this in my .bashrc:gm() { git stash; git merge $@; git stash pop}And then wait to see how long it takes to bite me in the ass somehow.
Jeremy Huiskamp
@jeremy: you will end up applying a very very old stash one day :). happened to me :).
reto
+6  A: 

Forget everything you ever learned from subversion.

Always commit before introducing external changes.

Imagine you had a mostly-working tree -- maybe not perfect, but you're making some progress. Then you go to do a merge and the code you're bringing in just wreaked havoc (was buggy itself, too many conflicts to deal with, etc...). Wouldn't it be nice if you could just undo that?

If you commit, you can. If you don't, you're just going to suffer.

Remember: What you commit doesn't have to be what you push, but what you don't commit you can easily lose.

Just do the safe and easy thing and commit early and commit often.

Dustin
So I commit my debugging statements and then merge. Then I do some real changes that I want to push. How do I get my debugging statements out, now that stuff I want to commit is dependent on that commit?
Jeremy Huiskamp
You can always revert a previous commit using the "revert" command
1800 INFORMATION
I will consider this strategy for when our code actually gets crazy enough that I have to worry about undoing it. However, for now, I believe the `stash` version is still reversible. I can re-stash, kill the merge commit and pop the stash again on whatever other commit I want.I don't mind forgetting what I've learned about subversion, but it blows when it does something much better than git, particularly when git is supposed to be the one that's so good at merging.
Jeremy Huiskamp
You could use "rebase -i" to reorder the commits and move the introduction of the debugging statements to the end.
araqnid
+1  A: 

You cannot tell git merge to merge changes on files that have changes with respect to your local repository. This protects you from losing your changes on those times when a merge goes badly.

With the CVS and SVN approach to merging, if you did not manually copy your files before the update and it scrambled them on merge, you have to manually re-edit to get back to a good state.

If you either commit your changes or stash them before doing a merge, everything is reversible. If the merge does not go well you can try several ways of making it work out and go with the one that works best.

If you do commit experimental or debug changes, you might use git rebase to move them after the commits you get via git merge to make it easier to get rid of them or to avoid pushing them to a repository accidentally.

Note that using git rebase on a branch you have pushed to a shared repository will cause grief for everyone who is pulling from that repository.

I prefer to use git stash in these cases, but I only use it if the merge changes files that I have edited and not committed.

Jamey Hicks