git merge does not merge

Question

I have a master and "PersonalSite" branch for a codebase I'm working on. I have been repeatedly trying to merge the master into the PersonalSite branch to no avail.

This time, I thought I had everything straightened out, so I did:

git checkout master git pull git checkout PersonalSite git pull git merge master 

It looked like everything was working, and it listed the set of files I would have expected, but there was a conflict. The conflict was correct and was as expected, so I fixed it, did "git add", "git commit", then "git push". But now, when I look at my git log, it just shows a commit with no code changes but a single conflict.

Now, when I run "git merge master" from the "PersonalSite" branch it says "Already up-to-date." but this clearly is not the case, as none of the changes I tried to merge actually merged. What exactly do I do to get master to actually merge at this point?

Answer 1

By fixing the conflict and committing the merge conflict you've already completed the merge. Git adds merge commits when necessary, it's normal but they don't record anything except that the merge took place and what files were merged if there was a conflict. If you look more closely at your log you'll see there are in fact commits from master.

EDIT: Okay, try this a test. You don't have to use the merge command, you can just pull master into PersonalSite.

git checkout PersonalSite git pull origin master 

See what gives you. If it says up to date then you have merged correctly.

If you merge stuff locally like you did, then you need to ensure the local tracking branches are up to date. Always specify the branch name to pull from,

git pull origin master git pull origin PersonalSite 

Answer 2

I realize that this is an older question now, but I was just having what I believe is the same problem. I couldn't get it resolved with any combination of the commands in other answers, but I did resolve it by running in the branch that I want merges into:

git checkout <desired_branch_name> -- . 

So for you:

git checkout master -- . 

I found this answer here: git: checkout files from another branch into current branch (don't switch HEAD to the other branch)