Result of the command git merge origin/master:
javanoob@DELL:~/workspace/PROJECT_One$ git merge origin/master Updating d83ef9c..dd520ea error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge: sample.txt Please move or remove them before you can merge. Aborting Result of the command git merge master:
javanoob@DELL:~/workspace/PROJECT_One$ git merge master Already up-to-date. When I do the command git merge origin/master It shows that there are some files which will be overwritten but if I do the same command without the prefix origin/ it says everything is already up-to-date.
What is wrong in this setup?
I don't know if it matters but before running these commands, I did run the command git fetch origin
3 Answers
git fetch fetches information on remote branches, but does not make any changes to your local master branch. Because of this, master and origin/master are still diverged. You'd have to merge them by using git pull.
When you make a commit, your local master branch is ahead of origin/master until you push those changes. This case is the opposite, where the origin/master branch is ahead of your local master branch. This is why you are getting different outcomes.
Using git merge origin/master refers to the master branch on the server. git merge master refers to your local master branch.
By using git pull you can merge them if they diverge.
master is your local branch, origin/master is remote branch (the state it was at last fetch)
The output you have shows that there's a commit in remote, that will overwrite sample.txt and is not yet pull'ed into your local master
As a rule of thumb - it's always better to have a clean working tree and up-to-date branches before doing any merging/rebasing etc.
So - commit your work, check git status, then do git pull --rebase ('oh-my-zsh' has alias gup for this) and only then proceed with merging.
