How do I resolve git saying “Commit your changes or stash them before you can merge”?

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I made some updates on my local machine, pushed them to a remote repository, and now I’m trying to pull the changes to the server and I get the message;

error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
wp-content/w3tc-config/master.php
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.

So I ran,

git checkout -- wp-content/w3tc-config/master.php

and tried again and I get the same message. I’m assuming that w3tc changed something in the config file on the server. I don’t care whether the local copy or remote copy goes on the server (I suppose the remote one is best), I just want to be able to merge the rest of my changes (plugin updates).

Any ideas?

20 s
20

You can’t merge with local modifications. Git protects you from losing potentially important changes.

You have three options:

  • Commit the change using

    git commit -m "My message"

  • Stash it.

    Stashing acts as a stack, where you can push changes, and you pop them in reverse order.

    To stash, type

    git stash

    Do the merge, and then pull the stash:

    git stash pop

  • Discard the local changes

    using git reset --hard
    or git checkout -t -f remote/branch

    Or: Discard local changes for a specific file

    using git checkout filename

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