After a git clone command, git is saying that I have unmerged files

Question

I had some troubles with Git. So, I deleted manually all files in my local repository in order to clone all the files from my Github repository (I replaced every files of my local repository with the files from the online Github repository). The cloned files are located in the same place as before. Then I used the command:

git pull

and the terminal answers:

error: Pull is not possible because you have unmerged files.
hint: Fix them up in the work tree, and then use 'git add/rm <file>'
hint: as appropriate to mark resolution and make a commit.
fatal: Exiting because of an unresolved conflict.

Then I do:

git status

On branch master
Your branch and 'origin/master' have diverged,
and have 2 and 5 different commits each, respectively.
  (use "git pull" to merge the remote branch into yours)
You have unmerged paths.
  (fix conflicts and run "git commit")

Changes to be committed:

    new file:   src/main.cpp
    new file:   src/render.dia
    new file:   src/render/Scene.h
    new file:   src/state.dia.autosave
    new file:   src/state.h
    new file:   src/state/Status.h

Unmerged paths:
  (use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution)

    both modified:   rapport/rapport.odt

I do not understand why I have an unmerged file since I have just cloned the repository from GitHub to my local repository. In addition, I did not modify the files:

• src/main.cpp
• src/render.dia
• src/render/Scene.h
• src/state.dia.autosave
• src/state.h
• src/state/Status.h

Then I tried:

git reset --hard HEAD~1
HEAD is now at 9a68811 Revert "f"

and:

git pull
warning: Cannot merge binary files: src/render.dia (HEAD vs. e89ed43391b963508ea8aecfb7012ae7dda71cb0)
warning: Cannot merge binary files: rapport/rapport.odt (HEAD vs. e89ed43391b963508ea8aecfb7012ae7dda71cb0)
Auto-merging src/render/Scene.h
CONFLICT (add/add): Merge conflict in src/render/Scene.h
Auto-merging src/render.dia
CONFLICT (add/add): Merge conflict in src/render.dia
Auto-merging src/main.cpp
CONFLICT (add/add): Merge conflict in src/main.cpp
Auto-merging rapport/rapport.odt
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in rapport/rapport.odt
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.

How can I make my local version of master match the remote version of master?

Answer 1

As @torek mentioned, deleting the files in the working directory is not the same as deleting your repo. If you really want to do that, then you also need to remove the .git directory, or even better, delete the parent folder entirely.

However, it shouldn't ever be necessary to delete and re-clone a Git repo, so avoid doing that if possible.

---

In your case, the local and remote versions of master have diverged, leading to a history that might look something like this:

*--*--X--A--B [master]
       \
        C--D--E--F--G [origin/master]

(Except after you did git reset --hard HEAD~1, master will be at A instead of B.)

To wipe out your local commits, you can do:

git reset --hard X

Or, since you are already at commit A, simply:

git reset --hard HEAD^

You can then pull in the updates from origin:

git pull origin master

---

In the future, if do you want to keep your changes, but want to have a linear history rather than merges, you can do:

git pull --rebase

This applies your local commits on top of the remote commits, like so:

*--*--X--A--B
       \
        C--D--E--F--G [origin/master]
                     \
                      A'--B' [master]

(You may still have to deal with conflicts.)

You can then push your commits to origin as usual (git push origin master).