2025 11-November 17
Date: 2025 11-November 17
Tomorrow: 2025 11-November 18
The day after tomorrow: 2025 11-November 19
The markers Git uses to delineate conflicting sections of a file—<<<<<<<, =======, and >>>>>>>—always consist of seven repeating characters.
📝 Git Merge Conflict Markers
The format of a manually merged file when Git cannot auto-resolve is:
<<<<<<< HEAD
(Code in your current branch)
=======
(Code from the branch you are merging/pulling)
>>>>>>> branch-name-or-commit-hash
| Marker | Characters | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
<<<<<<< |
7 | Marks the start of the conflict block and the beginning of your changes (the HEAD version). |
======= |
7 | Separates the two versions of the conflicting code. |
>>>>>>> |
7 | Marks the end of the conflict block and the end of the incoming changes (the version from the branch/commit being pulled). |
The string that follows <<<<<<< is typically HEAD (meaning your current state, before the pull/merge), and the string following >>>>>>> is a unique identifier for the incoming changes (usually the branch name or the commit hash). These identifiers can be of variable length, but the delimiters themselves (<<<<<<<, =======, >>>>>>>) are always seven characters long.
Knowing this fixed length can be helpful when writing automated scripts to parse conflict files, though most modern editors handle this visualization for you!