I’m working on a project where multiple people can edit the same Google Docs file through the Google Drive API. The problem is that when one person makes changes and another person also edits the document at the same time, I need to figure out how to properly combine all the modifications.
What’s the right approach to handle this situation? I’m only dealing with text content changes, no formatting or styling updates are involved. Is there a specific method or workflow that works best for merging these concurrent edits without losing anyone’s work?
I’ve been looking into the API documentation but I’m not sure which approach would be most reliable for handling these merge conflicts.
honestly, the easiest approach i’ve found is using the revisions endpoint to catch conflicts b4 writing. if the revision ID changed since your last read, someone else made edits. u can either auto-merge or show users a conflict warning. way simpler than building ops transforms from scratch.
Google Docs already handles real-time collaboration through its operational transform system - you’re probably overcomplicating this. When multiple people edit at once, the document stays consistent without any manual merge logic from you. The Drive API shows the current state after all changes are applied. If you’re building a custom editor that pushes changes via API, you’ll need your own conflict resolution. I use the document’s revision ID to catch changes that happened between reading and writing. When conflicts pop up, grab the latest version and reapply your changes using the Docs API’s batch update methods. For text-only stuff, go with simple last-write-wins or make users resolve conflicts manually. Just check revision IDs before each update.
I ran into this exact problem and here’s what actually worked for me: you need proper versioning on your end. Google Docs handles concurrent edits perfectly when people work directly in the interface, but the API bypasses that system entirely. I used a timestamp approach - track when each edit happens and apply them chronologically. Always fetch the current document state before updating through the API so you’re working with the latest version. Break large edits into smaller, atomic changes. This cuts down on conflicts and makes merging overlapping edits way easier. Also, set up a queue system to process edits one by one instead of all at once - otherwise you’ll get race conditions.