git pull - fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories

gitunrelatedhistories.md

GIT Unrelated Histories

When you try to pull a remote branch to a local with two unrelated histories or merge two branches with unrelated hisotories, you will encounter this error.

$ git pull
fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories

Resolution

This issue can be resolved in 2 ways:

Accept both branch histories

We can accept and have both branch histories by using the argument --allow-unrelated-histories Note: If you habe the same file name with changes, it will result in conflicts and these are supposed to be resolved manually

Pull changes from Remote Branch

$ git pull --allow-unrelated-histories
Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.

Merge changes from branchB and merge to branchA

$ git checkout branchA
$ git merge branchB --allow-unrelated-histories
Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.

Accept current branch history alone

Push changes from local branch to remote

Note: This will override the changes present in the remote.

$ git push --force

Merge from branchB and merge to branchA (Keep branchA history)

$ git checkout branchA
$ git merge branchB -X ours || die "complex merge conflict"

Merge from branchB and merge to branchA (Keep branchB history)

$ git checkout branchA
$ git merge branchB -X theirs || die "complex merge conflict"