User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Rebasing and merge conflicts

The dreaded merge conflict. Here's how to solve them. Written from a Windows and VS Code perspective.

Rebasing a GitHub pull request

Ugh. What a nightmare.

This is probably the way to go. Force pushing makes it so that I can't check out the PR with VS Code's GitHub extension.

repo -> ... -> Settings -> General -> tick "Always suggest updating pull request branches"
Go back to the PR.
At the bottom, next to the button that says "Update branch", click the down arrow
Select "Update with merge commit"
Click "Update branch"

good for when there are complex merge conflicts, such as those involving file renames

Obsolete and buggy. Suggest using "update with merge commit", option 1

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I did a lot of Googling and trying things, none of it worked. Finally, Taavi gave me a workflow to use in the command line that works.

cd to repo
git checkout master
git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/master
git checkout vector-2022-bugs - Look at the branch name at the bottom of the PR. Do NOT use the branch name generated by VS Code's PR review plugin, e.g. pr/Gonzom/1915. Do NOT use the repo name by accident, e.g. Gonzom/twinkle-fixes (the branch name is in bold to the left of the repo name). If they used the master branch for their PR, you cannot edit their PR.
git rebase master
if merge conflict...
- 2 way editor (don't use VS Code's 3 way editor, it's terrible, disable it by setting git.mergeEditor to false)
  - git status – to see what files have conflicts (highlighted in red)
  - foreach file
    - open those files in editor
    - resolve conflicts manually (search for <<<<)
    - save
    - stage
  - click "continue" in VS Code's git panel, or git rebase --continue
if your own patch:
- git push origin vector-2022-bugs --force
if someone else's patch that you opened via the VS Code GitHub PR extension:
- git push Gonzom pr/Gonzom/1741:theirBranchName --force

Much easier.

Simple rebases can be handled by navigating to the webpage of the patch, then clicking the "Rebase" button in the top right.
Merge conflicts can be solved using the procedure at mw:Technical contributor onboarding/Resolve merge conflict. Basically...
- git rebase master
- In VS Code's source control panel, the files that are fine will be in the "Staged Changes" section, and the files that have merge conflicts will be in the "Merge Changes" section.
- git stage the files when you're done manually resolving the merge conflicts.
- When all done, in VS Code, click the blue "Continue" button (or git rebase --continue)
- git review (no need to git commit or git commit --amend)