This was the initial snapshot of my git repository
On branch master, file m1 contains
L1 On branch dev, file m1 contains
L1 L2 If I try to merge dev from master, it results in a conflict.
$ git checkout master Switched to branch 'master' $ git merge dev Auto-merging m1 CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in m1 Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result. $ git diff diff --cc m1 index 078f94b,9f46047..0000000 --- a/m1 +++ b/m1 @@@ -1,1 -1,2 +1,5 @@@ L1 ++<<<<<<< HEAD ++======= + L2 ++>>>>>>> dev Though I didn't modify line 2 of m1 in master, how did it result in a conflict?
To verify actual contents of the file and to be sure if this is caused by white-spaces:
On branch master
git branch dev * master $ xxd m1 0000000: 4c31 0a L1. On branch dev
$ git checkout dev Switched to branch 'dev' $ xxd m1 0000000: 4c31 0a4c 320a L1.L2. Here's the script I used to create this repo.
#!/bin/bash mkdir git_demo cd git_demo git init touch m1 git add . git commit -m "Added file: m1" # sleep is needed, otherwise a different repo is being created, probably because of *some* filesystem issue! sleep 1 git branch dev echo L1 >> m1 git add . git commit -m "Added line L1 to m1" # sleep is needed, otherwise a different repo is being created, probably because of *some* filesystem issue! sleep 1 git checkout dev echo L1 >> m1 git add . git commit -m "Added line L1 to m1" # sleep is needed, otherwise a different repo is being created, probably because of *some* filesystem issue! sleep 1 echo L2 >> m1 git add . git commit -m "Added line L2 to m1" # sleep is needed, otherwise a different repo is being created, probably because of *some* filesystem issue! gitg --all git checkout master git merge dev 
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