Why does git show a conflict between two apparently identical added files?

Question

I have a project that was started in TFS, then moved to Git. Unfortunately, the guy who moved it to Git just checked in the current files instead of using git-tfs. I'm trying to rebase his new commits in Git on top of the commits I pulled from TFS using git-tfs.

To do this, I'm simply rebasing his commits on top of the git-tfs commits. (I realize this will mess up remote Git branches, but we're a small team and it'll be OK. I've also tried cherry-picking instead but I hit the same problem.)

The problem I'm running into is a set of conflicts that look like this:

<<<<<<< HEAD
namespace OurNiftyProject
{
    public enum CardType
    { 
        Visa = 0,
        MasterCard = 1
    }
}
||||||| merged common ancestors
=======
namespace OurNiftyProject
{
    public enum CardType
    { 
        Visa = 0,
        MasterCard = 1
    }
}
>>>>>>> Add a bunch of stuff.

It appears that this is a conflict between a commit from the TFS side that added these files, and a commit on the Git side that added them (as the Git repo started out empty).

The logical thing would be to skip this commit, perhaps, but there are a few files in it (say ten out of a couple hundred) that are new. Those don't cause conflicts, of course.

Why can't Git figure out on its own that the two files are identical? Even if I use --ignore-whitespace when I rebase, Git still shows dozens of files like this that appear to be identical. I'm at a loss for how to resolve this.

Answer 1

It should be about line-ending differences, as ebneter comments.
I have already detailed a long time ago how git merge wasn't good at ignoring those differences (as opposed to whitespaces differences):
"Is it possible for git-merge to ignore line-ending differences?"

That is why a consistent eol conversion policy is necessary for those repository on heterogeneous environment.
See "Distributing git configuration with the code".

Answer 2

I'm doing a similar thing and just found out "-X ignore-space-at-eol". It is available for both merge and rebase. Seems to be doing the right thing but makes it death slow for me.