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CaptainForge
CaptainForge

Reputation: 1385

Why do I run into git merge conflicts when I do a revert?

So I've been trying to revert to the a prior version of my project. But I keep getting merge conflicts when I do a git revert. Why on earth does this make sense? I'm saying "I want to revert to this prior version, exactly as it was then" and now it's saying I need to keep some of the current code. No, I want none of it, I screwed up my project somehow and think this earlier version wasn't screwed up. I know I should just be able to resolve these problems, but I've never done a massive merge conflict before, and I don't understand a lot of this Xcode code.

Also, if I revert a commit, do I go BEFORE or AFTER the commit? For instance...

Commit A, Commit B, Commit C, Commit D.

I revert Commit B. Where do I go? After A, or after B?

$ git revert 8873550de2b6c4bec42cfec4e98600736f01ffb9
error: could not revert 8873550... Grid view
hint: after resolving the conflicts, mark the corrected paths
hint: with 'git add <paths>' or 'git rm <paths>'
hint: and commit the result with 'git commit'

Upvotes: 1

Views: 735

Answers (1)

Chris
Chris

Reputation: 136909

I'm saying "I want to revert to this prior version, exactly as it was then"

Actually, you're not:

Given one or more existing commits, revert the changes that the related patches introduce, and record some new commits that record them.

Given this simple history

D [master]
|
C
|
B
|
A

git revert B generates a new commit on top of D that reverses the changes introduced in B (see the example below). If the changes introduced in C conflict with this new commit, you'll get conflicts.

if I revert a commit, do I go BEFORE or AFTER the commit

Neither. You'd end up with something like

E [master]
|
D
|
C
|
B
|
A

where E's changes reverse C's changes.

If you want to "go back in time" to B you can use git checkout B (which will result in a detached head, which generally isn't helpful if you want to make new changes from that point), you can use git reset to move master back to B, making C and D eligible for garbage collection, or you can use git branch to create a new branch at B.

With the information in your question I can't tell which of these you want.

Upvotes: 4

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