When an exception of type ‘Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Contracts.GitCheckoutConflictException’ is thrown, it means that a conflict occurred during a git checkout operation.
In the context of version control systems like Git, a conflict occurs when there are conflicting changes made to the same file or files. This can happen when multiple developers make changes to the same code simultaneously, or when merging branches with conflicting changes.
When such a conflict is detected, Git cannot automatically resolve it and the ‘GitCheckoutConflictException’ is thrown to indicate this.
To better understand the concept, let’s consider a simple example:
// File: hello.txt
Line 1: Hello, this is the original content.
// Developer A makes a change
Line 1: Hello, this is a modification made by Developer A.
// Developer B makes a change
Line 1: Hello, this is a modification made by Developer B.
// Git cannot automatically resolve the conflict between A and B
// and throws a 'GitCheckoutConflictException'In this example, both Developer A and Developer B tried to modify the same line of the ‘hello.txt’ file. When Git attempts to checkout the latest version of this file, it detects a conflict between the changes made by Developer A and Developer B. Since Git cannot determine which change to keep, it throws the ‘GitCheckoutConflictException’.
In order to resolve this conflict, a developer needs to manually review the conflicting changes, decide which change should be kept, and modify the file accordingly.
Once the conflict is resolved, the developer can commit the changes to complete the checkout operation successfully.