Why does Git sometimes generate meaningless merge conflicts

Question

Quite frequently during rebases, Git generates a merge conflict like the following:

<<<<<<< HEAD
}
=======
}
>>>>>>> f192b7c... My commit description here

The two sections are, character-for-character, identical.

Is this a known bug? Using version 1.8.2 on OS X.

Are you sure there aren't any whitespace or unprintable characters in one side or the other? — Carl Norum, May 08 '13 at 05:08
might be a subtle bug, dont they use hashes - maybe its not accurate in some stray cases. maybe you link to both versions and someone else can try on a different platform. or make a new repo on VM ware ... — tgkprog, May 08 '13 at 05:11

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:25

For me, this has always been a case of EOL character conflicts - i.e. CR vs LF vs CRLF. You may be using different tools or platforms that produce different line endings, especially if you're working on a team, and especially if you're using both Windows and Linux. Have a look at github's Dealing with line endings, and this comprehensive writeup on the old vs. new systems of handling things, and this SO link about core.whitespace.

Why does Git sometimes generate meaningless merge conflicts

1 Answers1