SVN: How to resolve a conflict tutorial

This tutorial is walkthough on how to resolve a conflict in svn (subversion)

First I will make a test.txt

test

Now I will commit the changes

C:\workspace\test>svn ci -m "making a starting point"Sending        .Sending        test.txtTransmitting file data .Committed revision 2.

Suppose we have 2 users. User1 and User2. Both of them will get and update from svn

C:\workspace\test>svn upA    test.txtAt revision 2.

Now User1 will change the file to:

User1 is making a conflict test

He then commits his changes

C:\workspace\test>svn ci -m "User1 starting a conflict" Sending        .Sending        test.txtTransmitting file data .Committed revision 3.

User2 now comes along and changes his local copy of the file not knowing that it has already been updated by User1 on the server.

test User2 making a conflict

When he tries to commit he will get and error from svn.

svn: Commit failed (details follow):svn: File or directory 'test.txt' is out of date; try updatingsvn: resource out of date; try updating

So User2 performs an update

C:\workspace\test>svn upConflict discovered in 'test.txt'.Select: (p) postpone, (df) diff-full, (e) edit,        (mc) mine-conflict, (tc) theirs-conflict,        (s) show all options:

svn detects that theres a conflict here and require you to take some kind of action.
If you type ‘s’ here you will get a list of the commands and meaning

 (e)  edit             - change merged file in an editor  (df) diff-full        - show all changes made to merged file  (r)  resolved         - accept merged version of file  (dc) display-conflict - show all conflicts (ignoring merged version) (mc) mine-conflict    - accept my version for all conflicts (same)  (tc) theirs-conflict  - accept their version for all conflicts (same)  (mf) mine-full        - accept my version of entire file (even non-conflicts)  (tf) theirs-full      - accept their version of entire file (same)  (p)  postpone         - mark the conflict to be resolved later  (l)  launch           - launch external tool to resolve conflict  (s)  show all         - show this list 

If you type ‘df’ it will show you a all the conflicts in the following format

Select: (p) postpone, (df) diff-full, (e) edit,         (mc) mine-conflict, (tc) theirs-conflict,         (s) show all options: df --- .svn/text-base/test.txt.svn-base    Tue Aug 10 10:59:38 2010 +++ .svn/tmp/test.txt.2.tmp     Tue Aug 10 11:33:24 2010 @@ -1 +1,3 @@ -test \ No newline at end of file +<<<<<<< .mine +test User2 making conflict======= +User1 is making a conflict test>>>>>>> .r3

‘e’ option will open the conflicted file in the text editor that you configured for svn to use. In this case it will show

<<<<<<< .mine test User2 making conflict======= User1 is making a conflict test>>>>>>> .r3

You can resolve the conflict here by changing the text to what you desire.
For example:

User1 is making a conflict test User2 making conflict

save your changes and exit your text editor and it will give you the conflict options again. Now if you use the ‘r’ it will mark the file is merged with a ‘G’.  A status of ‘G’ means there was a conflict and it has been resolved.

Select: (p) postpone, (df) diff-full, (e) edit, (r) resolved,         (mc) mine-conflict, (tc) theirs-conflict,         (s) show all options: e Select: (p) postpone, (df) diff-full, (e) edit, (r) resolved,         (mc) mine-conflict, (tc) theirs-conflict,         (s) show all options: r G    test.txt Updated to revision 3.

you can now check the status with svn status. You see that test.txt is marked as ‘M’ all thats left to do is commit.

C:\workspace\test2>svn stM       test.txtC:\workspace\test2>svn ci -m "conflict resolved"Sending        test.txt Transmitting file data . Committed revision 4.

Sometimes the conflicts are a bit more extensive and it requires more time or better tools to resolve the conflict in these cases you can chose ‘p’ to postpone the resolution.

Select: (p) postpone, (df) diff-full, (e) edit, (r) resolved,         (mc) mine-conflict, (tc) theirs-conflict,         (s) show all options: p C    test.txt Updated to revision 3. Summary of conflicts:   Text conflicts: 1

Now if you look in your directory you will see that svn has created a few extra files for you.

08/10/2010  11:44 AM                94 test.txt 08/10/2010  11:44 AM                26 test.txt.mine  08/10/2010  11:44 AM                27 test.txt.r2  08/10/2010  11:44 AM                31 test.txt.r3

The test.txt file is now a file with both User2 and User1′s changes but marked.

<<<<<<< .mine test User2 making conflict======= User1 am making a conflict test>>>>>>> .r3

test.txt.mine is User2′s copy.

test User2 making conflict

test.txt.r2 is the original base copy

test

test.txt.r3 is the copy User1 commited

User1 is making a conflict test

At this point you can choose your favorite merge tools to merge the differences in a file.
I suggest merging the differences into test.txt and the do a

C:\workspace\test>svn resolve --accept working test.txt  Resolved conflicted state of 'test.txt'

You can also use any of the other files if you wanted to and just pass resolve –accept a different argument. Here are the valid arguments

base Choose the file that was the BASE revision before you updated your working copy. That is, the file that you checked out before you made your latest edits.working Assuming that you've manually handled the conflict resolution, choose the version of the file as it currently stands in your working copy. mine-full Resolve all conflicted files with copies of the files as they stood immediately before you ran svn update.theirs-full Resolve all conflicted files with copies of the files that were fetched from the server when you ran svn update.

Now you are ready to commit.

C:\workspace\test>svn ci -m "conflict resolved" Sending        test.txt Transmitting file data . Committed revision 4.