Git merge conflict with unrelated file?

Question

I'm getting some really weird behavior in Git 1.7.5.4 when trying to merge from one older release branch of our software to the master.

$ git checkout master
$ git merge 0.1.2.3
[...]
Auto-merging ProjectA/src/main/groovy/com/example/package/Something.groovy
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in ProjectA/src/main/groovy/com/example/package/Something.groovy
[...]
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.

Looking at that file, I see something really weird:

$ cat ProjectA/src/main/groovy/com/example/package/Something.groovy

<<<<<<< HEAD
[contents of ProjectA/src/main/groovy/com/example/package/Something.groovy]
=======
[contents of ProjectC/src/main/groovy/com/example/something/Different.groovy !!]
>>>>>>> 0.1.2.3

The Something.groovy file doesn't exist on the other branch. The Different.groovy file doesn't exist anymore on the master branch. I would have expected to have gotten a merge conflict warning about the file not existing. I did not expect it to get incorrectly related to a completely unrelated file in a different project.

Any idea what could cause something like this? I don't think it's a hash collision, looking at the hashes of the history of the files using git log --raw and git show --raw .

Answer 1

I would grab the latest version of git and try it again. The one you're using is over a year old.

Secondly, check if the file contents are similar. Git detects the move of a file based on the contents and will use it to help merge branches.