GitHub: Difference between Accept current changes and Incoming changes

Question

Problem occurs when codes are conflict.

As you see in image given above that four options are there

1. Accept incoming changes
2. Accept current changes
3. Accept Both changes
4. Compare changes

I want to know the difference between Accept Current changes and Accept Incoming changes

Answer 1

It depends on the type of operation (merge or rebase) leading to that conflict.

In your case, a merge, where:

• current change represents what you have (the destination of the merge)
• incoming change represents what you merge (the source of the merge)

Then:

• Option 1 ("Accept Incoming changes") would ignore completely what you had, and keep what you merge.
• Option 2 ("Accept current changes") would ignore completely what you merge, and keep what you had.

Don't forget, in case of a rebase, "what you have" and "what you merge" are reversed.

Answer 2

If it's a conflict due to a rebase, you could always imagine like so -

1. Your master branch is fixed
2. A feature branch that originated from an older commit on master, is shifting itself from there to the latest commit on master (that's what a rebase is, at its core).

Now, if you see from the point of view of master -

• incoming changes are the ones that move to master (i.e. changes in your feature branch), hence the term.

• current changes are the ones that are already present in master (i.e. ones done by fellow developers or yourself on master).

In case of merge conflicts, as suggested by @VonC, the terminology is reversed.