git - Whats the Proper usage of .gitattributes with merge=ours

Question

I just tried using .gitattributes for the first time. I figure I must be doing something wrong because it is not working as I thought the purpose of using the merge=ours attribute was intended for (?).

An example of my usage:

I have two branches; one is the "master" and the other is "GCE-Site". There are files on the "GCE-Site" branch that have different settings that also exists on the "master" branch that I do not want merging into the "master" [or other branches].

On both branches, I have a .gitattributes containing the following rules:

README.md merge=ours
config.php merge=ours
.gitattributes merge=ours
.gitignore merge=ours
.cache/ merge=ours

All the files needing the rules are on the root level plus everything above the .cache/ folder. When I do a git merge GCE-Site, all files still merge into the master when I don't want that.

Is there something I am missing? Your help is greatly appreciated. Thnx

Answer 1

Easy fix once I knew what I was doing: I missed adding the merge strategy with git config --global merge.ours.driver true in my local environment.