When you're working with Git and rebasing, the potential for conflicts lurks in the shadows. These conflicts can feel daunting, especially if you're not familiar with how to resolve them. Knowing how to handle rebase conflicts effectively can save you time and frustration, allowing you to maintain a clean commit history without losing valuable work.

In this chapter, we will break down the mechanics of rebase conflicts, how to resolve them, and some common pitfalls to avoid. By the end, you'll have a solid understanding of how to navigate the complexities of rebasing without fear of conflicts derailing your progress.

Understanding Rebase Conflicts

Rebase conflicts occur when Git encounters changes that cannot be applied cleanly. This typically happens when you attempt to rebase a branch onto another branch that has diverged. Git stops the rebase process at the conflicting commit, allowing you to manually resolve the issues before continuing.

When you rebase, Git tries to apply your changes on top of the target branch. If changes in that branch overlap or contradict your changes, Git can't automatically merge them, leading to a conflict.

To visualize this, consider the following commit graph:

If you try to rebase feature onto main, and commits C and F change the same line in a file, you'll encounter a conflict.

Identifying Conflicts

When a conflict arises during a rebase, Git provides clear feedback. You will see output similar to the following in your terminal:

This indicates that Git stopped the rebase at commit C due to a conflict in path/to/conflicted_file. To resolve this, you need to follow these steps:

Resolving Conflicts

Once you've identified the conflicting files, it's time to resolve the issues. Here’s how to do it effectively:

Edit the files: Open each conflicting file and search for the conflict markers. Decide how to merge the changes manually. For example:

You need to choose which changes to keep or combine both sets of changes.

Remove conflict markers: After resolving the conflicts, ensure you delete the conflict markers. Your file should be clean and ready for staging.

Stage the resolved files: Once you’ve made your edits, stage the resolved files using:

Continue the rebase: After staging all resolved files, continue the rebase with:

If there are more conflicts, Git will inform you, and you will repeat the process until all conflicts are resolved.

Practical Example of Rebase Conflicts

Let’s put this into context with a practical scenario. Imagine you’re working on a feature branch called feature/login that involves changes to a file called login.js. Meanwhile, your teammate has updated the same file in the main branch. Here’s how to handle it:

Start by fetching the latest changes:

Begin the rebase:

If a conflict occurs, you’ll see output similar to:

Check the status:

Open login.js and you might see:

Resolve the conflicts, keeping the necessary code, and then stage:

Continue the rebase:

Repeat this process until the rebase completes successfully.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Rebase conflicts can be a source of anxiety, but understanding how to manage them effectively can alleviate that stress. Here are some common pitfalls and how to avoid them:

Recovery from Rebase Conflicts

Sometimes, resolving conflicts can lead to unexpected issues. If you find yourself stuck or want to abort the rebase at any point, you can simply run:

This command will revert your branch to its original state before the rebase began. You can then take a step back and reassess your approach.

If you want to save your progress during a rebase without completing it, you can use:

This skips the current patch. Use this with caution, as it can lead to lost changes if not handled properly.

Now that you understand how to handle rebase conflicts effectively, you're ready to explore the git rebase --onto command.

In the next chapter, we will look at how to use this powerful tool to reshape your commit history in more complex scenarios, giving you even greater flexibility in managing your Git workflow.