Cleaning up after a conflicted git merge?

Question

I had a small conflict in a .h header file in a project I'm working on. This project is tracked in Git.

Fortunately, the conflict was very simple to solve. I used

git mergetool

And chose the default (opendiff) which seemed to be FileMerge on my Mac. I made the appropriate changes, saved the file, and closed.

Git then asked me if the merge was successful, I said yes:

Was the merge successful? [y/n] y

But now, I have:

> git st
# On branch develop
# Changes to be committed:
#   modified:   MyHeader.h
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   MyHeader.h.BACKUP.52920.h
#   MyHeader.h.BASE.52920.h
#   MyHeader.h.LOCAL.52920.h
#   MyHeader.h.REMOTE.52920.h
#   MyHeader.h.orig

Which of those extra junk conflict files were created by FileMerge, and which by Git?

And more importantly: How do I remove them?

score 54 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 12 '13 at 23:09

54

You can simply delete them like you would any other file. For example:

rm MyHeader.h.orig

Alternatively, if there are no other untracked files, then after you commit with

git commit -a

you may clean your repository with

git clean -n
git clean -f

git clean -n will tell you what git clean -f will do, so you can be sure it's what you want.

answered Mar 12 '13 at 23:09

Neil Forrester

5,101
29
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Thanks - `git clean -n/-f` has been the go-to for a long time. You can also specify a path at the end, if you only want to perform the clean on a subfolder. – Craig Otis Mar 01 '14 at 21:44
Sometimes *.orig is in the **.gitignore** file. In this case the way to go is dry-run including ignored files: `git clean -nx */*.orig`, check and then delete `git clean -fx */*.orig`. Credit goes to: http://travisjeffery.com/b/2011/12/keeping-your-git-repo-clean-of-orig-files/ – Julian Cardenas Aug 18 '16 at 18:39

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 12 '13 at 23:05

9

If they are the only untracked files, you can use git clean to delete them. Run it once with the -n flag to see what will be deleted then if you are sure, run it with -f. Don't use it if you have untracked files you want to keep!

answered Mar 12 '13 at 23:05

Ben Lings

28,823
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1

Note: "if they are the only untracked files". Be very careful with `git clean`, as you could easily lose the very files that are not under version control! I'd recommend just removing them manually. – Brent Faust Mar 12 '13 at 23:10
2

Or, I've gotten into the habit of using a file pattern, like: `git clean -f *.orig` – Craig Otis Sep 23 '14 at 11:56

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 12 '13 at 23:12

1

First commit your merge.

Once you're satisfied that all is well, simply remove these extra files manually (using rm <filename>, for example).

answered Mar 12 '13 at 23:12

Brent Faust

9,103
6
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Cleaning up after a conflicted git merge?

3 Answers3