Question

I have a project in a Git repo and I have been sent changes that have been made outside of Git. These changes are based on an earlier version that I have been making changes to myself. What is the best way to merge these external files with mine?

Many thanks!

Answer 1

The best way is to tell git what commit they were based off of, to give you the best chance of an automatic merge.

1. git checkout <sha1 of the old commit> -b mybranch, to rewind your work tree and start a new branch.
2. If the changes were sent as a diff, use git-apply to apply them to the work tree, otherwise just put the updated files in.
3. Add and commit the files.
4. git checkout master, then git merge mybranch.