How to resolve conflict of renamed folder of file in git?

Question

I have following problem:

I have some common commit A for two branches Branch1 and Branch2.

Branch1 is a public branch (lies on server)
Branch2 is a local branch

In Branch1 I changed file (BAD_folder/somefile.txt). Changes were pushed to server. In Branch2 I renamed BAD_folder to folder and made some changes in somefile.txt. I want to merge Branch1 with Branch2, but I get a merge conflict in BAD_folder/somefile.txt file.

How can I resolve this?

Are you merging Branch1 into Branch2, or Branch2 into your Branch1? What kind of conflicts do you have? — rocambille, Sep 02 '16 at 13:32
@wasthishelpful, The same problem. Main problem is to apply changes from different (in git understanding) file — Alex Aparin, Sep 02 '16 at 13:33
@wasthishelpful: Normally `git merge` is symmetric - so it should not matter which branch is merged where. — sleske, Sep 02 '16 at 13:34

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '16 at 13:34

You can rename folder to BAD_folder, merge or rebase Branch2 (which might be better when this branch is local) and rename folder back.

git checkout -b _tmp Branch1
git mv folder BAD_folder && git commit
git merge Branch2
git mv BAD_folder && git commit

When you did a rebase, you can do an additional git rebase -i Branch1 and remove the two git mv operations.

merge in point 3 works much better when filenames did not change but you might still have to resolve conflicts.

How to resolve conflict of renamed folder of file in git?

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