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

Question

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?

Answer 1

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