git-rebase(1) ============= NAME ---- git-rebase - Forward-port local commits to the updated upstream head SYNOPSIS -------- [verse] 'git-rebase' [-i | --interactive] [-v | --verbose] [--merge] [-C] [-p | --preserve-merges] [--onto ] [] 'git-rebase' --continue | --skip | --abort DESCRIPTION ----------- If is specified, git-rebase will perform an automatic `git checkout ` before doing anything else. Otherwise it remains on the current branch. All changes made by commits in the current branch but that are not in are saved to a temporary area. This is the same set of commits that would be shown by `git log ..HEAD`. The current branch is reset to , or if the --onto option was supplied. This has the exact same effect as `git reset --hard ` (or ). The commits that were previously saved into the temporary area are then reapplied to the current branch, one by one, in order. It is possible that a merge failure will prevent this process from being completely automatic. You will have to resolve any such merge failure and run `git rebase --continue`. Another option is to bypass the commit that caused the merge failure with `git rebase --skip`. To restore the original and remove the .dotest working files, use the command `git rebase --abort` instead. Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "topic": ------------ A---B---C topic / D---E---F---G master ------------ From this point, the result of either of the following commands: git-rebase master git-rebase master topic would be: ------------ A'--B'--C' topic / D---E---F---G master ------------ The latter form is just a short-hand of `git checkout topic` followed by `git rebase master`. Here is how you would transplant a topic branch based on one branch to another, to pretend that you forked the topic branch from the latter branch, using `rebase --onto`. First let's assume your 'topic' is based on branch 'next'. For example feature developed in 'topic' depends on some functionality which is found in 'next'. ------------ o---o---o---o---o master \ o---o---o---o---o next \ o---o---o topic ------------ We would want to make 'topic' forked from branch 'master', for example because the functionality 'topic' branch depend on got merged into more stable 'master' branch, like this: ------------ o---o---o---o---o master | \ | o'--o'--o' topic \ o---o---o---o---o next ------------ We can get this using the following command: git-rebase --onto master next topic Another example of --onto option is to rebase part of a branch. If we have the following situation: ------------ H---I---J topicB / E---F---G topicA / A---B---C---D master ------------ then the command git-rebase --onto master topicA topicB would result in: ------------ H'--I'--J' topicB / | E---F---G topicA |/ A---B---C---D master ------------ This is useful when topicB does not depend on topicA. A range of commits could also be removed with rebase. If we have the following situation: ------------ E---F---G---H---I---J topicA ------------ then the command git-rebase --onto topicA~5 topicA~2 topicA would result in the removal of commits F and G: ------------ E---H'---I'---J' topicA ------------ This is useful if F and G were flawed in some way, or should not be part of topicA. Note that the argument to --onto and the parameter can be any valid commit-ish. In case of conflict, git-rebase will stop at the first problematic commit and leave conflict markers in the tree. You can use git diff to locate the markers (<<<<<<) and make edits to resolve the conflict. For each file you edit, you need to tell git that the conflict has been resolved, typically this would be done with git add After resolving the conflict manually and updating the index with the desired resolution, you can continue the rebasing process with git rebase --continue Alternatively, you can undo the git-rebase with git rebase --abort OPTIONS ------- :: Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the --onto option is not specified, the starting point is . May be any valid commit, and not just an existing branch name. :: Upstream branch to compare against. May be any valid commit, not just an existing branch name. :: Working branch; defaults to HEAD. --continue:: Restart the rebasing process after having resolved a merge conflict. --abort:: Restore the original branch and abort the rebase operation. --skip:: Restart the rebasing process by skipping the current patch. --merge:: Use merging strategies to rebase. When the recursive (default) merge strategy is used, this allows rebase to be aware of renames on the upstream side. -s , \--strategy=:: Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once to specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is no `-s` option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead (`git-merge-recursive` when merging a single head, `git-merge-octopus` otherwise). This implies --merge. -v, \--verbose:: Display a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase. -C:: Ensure at least lines of surrounding context match before and after each change. When fewer lines of surrounding context exist they all must match. By default no context is ever ignored. -i, \--interactive:: Make a list of the commits which are about to be rebased. Let the user edit that list before rebasing. -p, \--preserve-merges:: Instead of ignoring merges, try to recreate them. This option only works in interactive mode. include::merge-strategies.txt[] NOTES ----- When you rebase a branch, you are changing its history in a way that will cause problems for anyone who already has a copy of the branch in their repository and tries to pull updates from you. You should understand the implications of using 'git rebase' on a repository that you share. When the git rebase command is run, it will first execute a "pre-rebase" hook if one exists. You can use this hook to do sanity checks and reject the rebase if it isn't appropriate. Please see the template pre-rebase hook script for an example. You must be in the top directory of your project to start (or continue) a rebase. Upon completion, will be the current branch. INTERACTIVE MODE ---------------- Rebasing interactively means that you have a chance to edit the commits which are rebased. You can reorder the commits, and you can remove them (weeding out bad or otherwise unwanted patches). The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow: 1. have a wonderful idea 2. hack on the code 3. prepare a series for submission 4. submit where point 2. consists of several instances of a. regular use 1. finish something worthy of a commit 2. commit b. independent fixup 1. realize that something does not work 2. fix that 3. commit it Sometimes the thing fixed in b.2. cannot be amended to the not-quite perfect commit it fixes, because that commit is buried deeply in a patch series. That is exactly what interactive rebase is for: use it after plenty of "a"s and "b"s, by rearranging and editing commits, and squashing multiple commits into one. Start it with the last commit you want to retain as-is: git rebase -i An editor will be fired up with all the commits in your current branch (ignoring merge commits), which come after the given commit. You can reorder the commits in this list to your heart's content, and you can remove them. The list looks more or less like this: ------------------------------------------- pick deadbee The oneline of this commit pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit ... ------------------------------------------- The oneline descriptions are purely for your pleasure; `git-rebase` will not look at them but at the commit names ("deadbee" and "fa1afe1" in this example), so do not delete or edit the names. By replacing the command "pick" with the command "edit", you can tell `git-rebase` to stop after applying that commit, so that you can edit the files and/or the commit message, amend the commit, and continue rebasing. If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command "pick" with "squash" for the second and subsequent commit. If the commits had different authors, it will attribute the squashed commit to the author of the last commit. In both cases, or when a "pick" does not succeed (because of merge errors), the loop will stop to let you fix things, and you can continue the loop with `git rebase --continue`. For example, if you want to reorder the last 5 commits, such that what was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call `git-rebase` like this: ---------------------- $ git rebase -i HEAD~5 ---------------------- And move the first patch to the end of the list. You might want to preserve merges, if you have a history like this: ------------------ X \ A---M---B / ---o---O---P---Q ------------------ Suppose you want to rebase the side branch starting at "A" to "Q". Make sure that the current HEAD is "B", and call ----------------------------- $ git rebase -i -p --onto Q O ----------------------------- Authors ------ Written by Junio C Hamano and Johannes E. Schindelin Documentation -------------- Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list . GIT --- Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite