How to merge two branches with different directory hierarchies in git?

Question

I started using Maven with a web application project so the directory hierarchy changed. I created a new branch for the Maven integration. Now I have two branches one with the old directory hierarchy and one with the maven directory hierarchy. Both branches have new commits (bugfixes and new features).

I would like to get rid of the old branch and merge it's changes to the Maven branch. Git merge gives countless conflicts that feels like impossible to resolve. I believe that this is because file paths have changed.

What is the best way to approach this merge?

Answer 1

Try setting merge.renameLimit to something high for this merge. git tries to detect renames, but only if the number of files is below this limit, since it requires O(n^2) processing time:

git config merge.renameLimit 999999 

then when done:

git config --unset merge.renameLimit