during git rebase: same file keeps conflicting

Question

I checked out a branch called 'topic'. I am still working on topic, but I want to include changes that are now in master branch. So I did this:

$ git checkout topic
$ git rebase master

After that, there were merge conflicts for file xyz.txt. So I modified file to be what I wanted, git add it, and did git rebase --continue.

But immediatly, the same file had merge conflicts. I fixed the file again and this time had to do git reabase --skip to continue.

But yet again the same file has the exact same merge conflicts. How is this happening?

EDIT:

Previously, I had been merging master into topic branch to accomplish this purpose. Then I just learned of rebase. So I'm guessing that has something to do with it.

---

Here is the state of git right now right before the third commit

$ git status
# Not currently on any branch.
# Unmerged paths:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#   (use "git add/rm <file>..." as appropriate to mark resolution)
#
#       both modified:      xyz.java
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

$ git ls-files -u
100644 cbf74a88604dd4ee0afe89d7aac1d179ce75e92c 1       xyz.java
100644 52841c2b4b6cc055251d533d5b83441d1329b412 2       xyz.java
100644 c45e7c6b979ec1e20b7dd70b38698193ea235abd 3       xyz.java

$ git log --graph --pretty=format:%d HEAD master topic
*  (HEAD)
*
*  (master)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
| *  (topic)
| *
| |\
| |/
|/|
* |
| *
| *
| |\
| |/
|/|
* |
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| |\
| |/
|/|
* |
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| |\
| |/
|/|
* |
* |
* |
|\ \
| * |
* | |
|/ /
| *
| *
| |\
| |/
|/|
* |
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| *
| |\
| |/
|/|
* |
| *
| |\
| |/
|/|
* |
| *
| *
| *
| *
|/
*
*

Answer 1

Try git rebase --interactive to validate how Git will rebase the history. There will be a list of commits that will be applied in the given order ontop of your base commit, i.e. master:

Example:

pick 12345678 # This will be the first commit of your rebased topic branch
pick deadbeef
pick ffffffff
pick 01010101 # This will be HEAD after the successful rebase

Sometimes, Git doesn't know if a commit is really new in a branch or just an existing commit (from master) with different ancestors. You can skip commits by removing them from the text file.

If this doesn't solve your conflicts immediately, there's a real conflict between the two branches. Be sure to merge the file(s) and stage them using git add. Afterwards be sure to use git rebase --continue to move on. Don't use git rebase --skip if you don't know exactly that it's useful here. (--skip will ignore the current, conflicting commit and try to apply the next commit, which might result in further inscrutable conflicts later on).