Handling conflicts is difficult!

One useful way to handle them, is to use git's diff3 conflict style:

git config --global merge.conflictstyle diff3

And then when you get a conflict, it looks like:

Unconflicted stuff

<<<<<<< HEAD
Version A changes
|||||||
Base version
======= Version B
Version B changes
>>>>>>>

More unconflicted stuff here

Then you are supposed to manually merge the useful changes in the top and bottom parts, relative to the base version.

A useful way to do this is to figure out which of the changes (Version A or Version B) is a simpler change.

Perhaps one of the versions just added a small comment above the code section:

Unconflicted stuff

<<<<<<< HEAD
Added a comment here
BASE
|||||||
BASE
======= Version B
BASE and complex changes here
>>>>>>>

More unconflicted stuff here

One easy thing to do, mechanically, is to apply the simple change to the other 2 versions. Thus, it becomes:

Unconflicted stuff

<<<<<<< HEAD
Added a comment here
BASE
|||||||
Added a comment here
BASE
======= Version B
Added a comment here
BASE and complex changes here
>>>>>>>

More unconflicted stuff here

Now, you can run this little utility: resolve-trivial-conflicts, which will see the conflict has become trivial (only one side changed anything) and select that side appropriately.

When all conflicts have been resolved in a file, "git add" will be used on it automatically.

You might just resolve the conflicts manually and remove the merge markers from all of the conflicts.

In such a case, just run resolve-trivial-conflicts, and it will "git add" the file for you.

First, make sure ~/.cabal/bin is in your $PATH.

git clone https://github.com/ElastiLotem/resolve-trivial-conflicts
cd resolve-trivial-conflicts
cabal install

Call the resolve-trivial-conflicts from a git repository with conflicts.

You can use the -e flag to invoke your $EDITOR on every conflicted file that could not be automatically resolved.

Sometimes, the conflict is just a giant block of incomprehensible text next to another giant block of incomprehensible text.

You can use the -d flag to show the conflict in diff-from-base form. Then, you can manually apply the changes you see in both the base and whereever needed, and use resolve-trivial-conflicts again to make sure you've updated everything appropriately.