How can I merge a specific file from one branch into another branch in Git

Question

I have 2 branches in a git repo, lets call them, dev and test. I have changes in a single file, somecode.js. Both branches have changes to somecode.js. The 2 branches have diverged significantly (but manageably) so a straight "merge" is insufficient.

I have tried http://jasonrudolph.com/blog/2009/02/25/git-tip-how-to-merge-specific-files-from-another-branch/ but it doesn't merge the contents of both files. You basically just write over the file instead of actually merging the contents of the file.

I have also tried:

git checkout -b newbranch
git checkout test somecode.js
git commit -m "somecode changes from newbranch"
git checkout dev
git merge newbranch

And

git checkout -m test somecode.js

(I was really hopeful with the -m for merge, but it didn't appear to work for me...)

I thought I was close to what I needed, but then I realized that it just fast-forwarded the commit meaning it didn't merge, it wrote over the original file in test.

So, to reiterate, how can I merge a specific file from one branch into another branch without just writing over the file in the branch I am merging into using git.

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13711455/how-can-i-merge-a-specific-file-from-one-branch-into-another-branch-in-git

Answer 1

I think you like to use

git checkout -p

In your case

git checkout dev
git checkout -p test somecode.js

And you can interactively apply the diffs.