6 git-rebase - Reapply commits on top of another base tip
11 'git rebase' [-i | --interactive] [<options>] [--exec <cmd>]
12 [--onto <newbase> | --keep-base] [<upstream> [<branch>]]
13 'git rebase' [-i | --interactive] [<options>] [--exec <cmd>] [--onto <newbase>]
15 'git rebase' (--continue | --skip | --abort | --quit | --edit-todo | --show-current-patch)
19 If <branch> is specified, 'git rebase' will perform an automatic
20 `git switch <branch>` before doing anything else. Otherwise
21 it remains on the current branch.
23 If <upstream> is not specified, the upstream configured in
24 branch.<name>.remote and branch.<name>.merge options will be used (see
25 linkgit:git-config[1] for details) and the `--fork-point` option is
26 assumed. If you are currently not on any branch or if the current
27 branch does not have a configured upstream, the rebase will abort.
29 All changes made by commits in the current branch but that are not
30 in <upstream> are saved to a temporary area. This is the same set
31 of commits that would be shown by `git log <upstream>..HEAD`; or by
32 `git log 'fork_point'..HEAD`, if `--fork-point` is active (see the
33 description on `--fork-point` below); or by `git log HEAD`, if the
34 `--root` option is specified.
36 The current branch is reset to <upstream>, or <newbase> if the
37 --onto option was supplied. This has the exact same effect as
38 `git reset --hard <upstream>` (or <newbase>). ORIG_HEAD is set
39 to point at the tip of the branch before the reset.
41 The commits that were previously saved into the temporary area are
42 then reapplied to the current branch, one by one, in order. Note that
43 any commits in HEAD which introduce the same textual changes as a commit
44 in HEAD..<upstream> are omitted (i.e., a patch already accepted upstream
45 with a different commit message or timestamp will be skipped).
47 It is possible that a merge failure will prevent this process from being
48 completely automatic. You will have to resolve any such merge failure
49 and run `git rebase --continue`. Another option is to bypass the commit
50 that caused the merge failure with `git rebase --skip`. To check out the
51 original <branch> and remove the .git/rebase-apply working files, use the
52 command `git rebase --abort` instead.
54 Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "topic":
62 From this point, the result of either of the following commands:
66 git rebase master topic
76 *NOTE:* The latter form is just a short-hand of `git checkout topic`
77 followed by `git rebase master`. When rebase exits `topic` will
78 remain the checked-out branch.
80 If the upstream branch already contains a change you have made (e.g.,
81 because you mailed a patch which was applied upstream), then that commit
82 will be skipped. For example, running `git rebase master` on the
83 following history (in which `A'` and `A` introduce the same set of changes,
84 but have different committer information):
100 Here is how you would transplant a topic branch based on one
101 branch to another, to pretend that you forked the topic branch
102 from the latter branch, using `rebase --onto`.
104 First let's assume your 'topic' is based on branch 'next'.
105 For example, a feature developed in 'topic' depends on some
106 functionality which is found in 'next'.
109 o---o---o---o---o master
111 o---o---o---o---o next
116 We want to make 'topic' forked from branch 'master'; for example,
117 because the functionality on which 'topic' depends was merged into the
118 more stable 'master' branch. We want our tree to look like this:
121 o---o---o---o---o master
125 o---o---o---o---o next
128 We can get this using the following command:
130 git rebase --onto master next topic
133 Another example of --onto option is to rebase part of a
134 branch. If we have the following situation:
146 git rebase --onto master topicA topicB
158 This is useful when topicB does not depend on topicA.
160 A range of commits could also be removed with rebase. If we have
161 the following situation:
164 E---F---G---H---I---J topicA
169 git rebase --onto topicA~5 topicA~3 topicA
171 would result in the removal of commits F and G:
174 E---H'---I'---J' topicA
177 This is useful if F and G were flawed in some way, or should not be
178 part of topicA. Note that the argument to --onto and the <upstream>
179 parameter can be any valid commit-ish.
181 In case of conflict, 'git rebase' will stop at the first problematic commit
182 and leave conflict markers in the tree. You can use 'git diff' to locate
183 the markers (<<<<<<) and make edits to resolve the conflict. For each
184 file you edit, you need to tell Git that the conflict has been resolved,
185 typically this would be done with
191 After resolving the conflict manually and updating the index with the
192 desired resolution, you can continue the rebasing process with
195 git rebase --continue
198 Alternatively, you can undo the 'git rebase' with
206 include::config/rebase.txt[]
207 include::config/sequencer.txt[]
212 Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the
213 --onto option is not specified, the starting point is
214 <upstream>. May be any valid commit, and not just an
215 existing branch name.
217 As a special case, you may use "A\...B" as a shortcut for the
218 merge base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can
219 leave out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
222 Set the starting point at which to create the new commits to the
223 merge base of <upstream> <branch>. Running
224 'git rebase --keep-base <upstream> <branch>' is equivalent to
225 running 'git rebase --onto <upstream>... <upstream>'.
227 This option is useful in the case where one is developing a feature on
228 top of an upstream branch. While the feature is being worked on, the
229 upstream branch may advance and it may not be the best idea to keep
230 rebasing on top of the upstream but to keep the base commit as-is.
232 Although both this option and --fork-point find the merge base between
233 <upstream> and <branch>, this option uses the merge base as the _starting
234 point_ on which new commits will be created, whereas --fork-point uses
235 the merge base to determine the _set of commits_ which will be rebased.
237 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
240 Upstream branch to compare against. May be any valid commit,
241 not just an existing branch name. Defaults to the configured
242 upstream for the current branch.
245 Working branch; defaults to HEAD.
248 Restart the rebasing process after having resolved a merge conflict.
251 Abort the rebase operation and reset HEAD to the original
252 branch. If <branch> was provided when the rebase operation was
253 started, then HEAD will be reset to <branch>. Otherwise HEAD
254 will be reset to where it was when the rebase operation was
258 Abort the rebase operation but HEAD is not reset back to the
259 original branch. The index and working tree are also left
260 unchanged as a result. If a temporary stash entry was created
261 using --autostash, it will be saved to the stash list.
264 Use applying strategies to rebase (calling `git-am`
265 internally). This option may become a no-op in the future
266 once the merge backend handles everything the apply one does.
268 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
270 --empty={drop,keep,ask}::
271 How to handle commits that are not empty to start and are not
272 clean cherry-picks of any upstream commit, but which become
273 empty after rebasing (because they contain a subset of already
274 upstream changes). With drop (the default), commits that
275 become empty are dropped. With keep, such commits are kept.
276 With ask (implied by --interactive), the rebase will halt when
277 an empty commit is applied allowing you to choose whether to
278 drop it, edit files more, or just commit the empty changes.
279 Other options, like --exec, will use the default of drop unless
280 -i/--interactive is explicitly specified.
282 Note that commits which start empty are kept (unless --no-keep-empty
283 is specified), and commits which are clean cherry-picks (as determined
284 by `git log --cherry-mark ...`) are detected and dropped as a
285 preliminary step (unless --reapply-cherry-picks is passed).
287 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
291 Do not keep commits that start empty before the rebase
292 (i.e. that do not change anything from its parent) in the
293 result. The default is to keep commits which start empty,
294 since creating such commits requires passing the --allow-empty
295 override flag to `git commit`, signifying that a user is very
296 intentionally creating such a commit and thus wants to keep
299 Usage of this flag will probably be rare, since you can get rid of
300 commits that start empty by just firing up an interactive rebase and
301 removing the lines corresponding to the commits you don't want. This
302 flag exists as a convenient shortcut, such as for cases where external
303 tools generate many empty commits and you want them all removed.
305 For commits which do not start empty but become empty after rebasing,
306 see the --empty flag.
308 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
310 --reapply-cherry-picks::
311 --no-reapply-cherry-picks::
312 Reapply all clean cherry-picks of any upstream commit instead
313 of preemptively dropping them. (If these commits then become
314 empty after rebasing, because they contain a subset of already
315 upstream changes, the behavior towards them is controlled by
318 By default (or if `--no-reapply-cherry-picks` is given), these commits
319 will be automatically dropped. Because this necessitates reading all
320 upstream commits, this can be expensive in repos with a large number
321 of upstream commits that need to be read.
323 `--reapply-cherry-picks` allows rebase to forgo reading all upstream
324 commits, potentially improving performance.
326 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
328 --allow-empty-message::
329 No-op. Rebasing commits with an empty message used to fail
330 and this option would override that behavior, allowing commits
331 with empty messages to be rebased. Now commits with an empty
332 message do not cause rebasing to halt.
334 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
337 Restart the rebasing process by skipping the current patch.
340 Edit the todo list during an interactive rebase.
342 --show-current-patch::
343 Show the current patch in an interactive rebase or when rebase
344 is stopped because of conflicts. This is the equivalent of
345 `git show REBASE_HEAD`.
349 Use merging strategies to rebase. When the recursive (default) merge
350 strategy is used, this allows rebase to be aware of renames on the
351 upstream side. This is the default.
353 Note that a rebase merge works by replaying each commit from the working
354 branch on top of the <upstream> branch. Because of this, when a merge
355 conflict happens, the side reported as 'ours' is the so-far rebased
356 series, starting with <upstream>, and 'theirs' is the working branch. In
357 other words, the sides are swapped.
359 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
362 --strategy=<strategy>::
363 Use the given merge strategy.
364 If there is no `-s` option 'git merge-recursive' is used
365 instead. This implies --merge.
367 Because 'git rebase' replays each commit from the working branch
368 on top of the <upstream> branch using the given strategy, using
369 the 'ours' strategy simply empties all patches from the <branch>,
370 which makes little sense.
372 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
374 -X <strategy-option>::
375 --strategy-option=<strategy-option>::
376 Pass the <strategy-option> through to the merge strategy.
377 This implies `--merge` and, if no strategy has been
378 specified, `-s recursive`. Note the reversal of 'ours' and
379 'theirs' as noted above for the `-m` option.
381 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
383 --rerere-autoupdate::
384 --no-rerere-autoupdate::
385 Allow the rerere mechanism to update the index with the
386 result of auto-conflict resolution if possible.
389 --gpg-sign[=<keyid>]::
391 GPG-sign commits. The `keyid` argument is optional and
392 defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be
393 stuck to the option without a space. `--no-gpg-sign` is useful to
394 countermand both `commit.gpgSign` configuration variable, and
395 earlier `--gpg-sign`.
399 Be quiet. Implies --no-stat.
403 Be verbose. Implies --stat.
406 Show a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase. The
407 diffstat is also controlled by the configuration option rebase.stat.
411 Do not show a diffstat as part of the rebase process.
414 This option bypasses the pre-rebase hook. See also linkgit:githooks[5].
417 Allows the pre-rebase hook to run, which is the default. This option can
418 be used to override --no-verify. See also linkgit:githooks[5].
421 Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before
422 and after each change. When fewer lines of surrounding
423 context exist they all must match. By default no context is
424 ever ignored. Implies --apply.
426 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
431 Individually replay all rebased commits instead of fast-forwarding
432 over the unchanged ones. This ensures that the entire history of
433 the rebased branch is composed of new commits.
435 You may find this helpful after reverting a topic branch merge, as this option
436 recreates the topic branch with fresh commits so it can be remerged
437 successfully without needing to "revert the reversion" (see the
438 link:howto/revert-a-faulty-merge.html[revert-a-faulty-merge How-To] for
443 Use reflog to find a better common ancestor between <upstream>
444 and <branch> when calculating which commits have been
445 introduced by <branch>.
447 When --fork-point is active, 'fork_point' will be used instead of
448 <upstream> to calculate the set of commits to rebase, where
449 'fork_point' is the result of `git merge-base --fork-point <upstream>
450 <branch>` command (see linkgit:git-merge-base[1]). If 'fork_point'
451 ends up being empty, the <upstream> will be used as a fallback.
453 If <upstream> is given on the command line, then the default is
454 `--no-fork-point`, otherwise the default is `--fork-point`.
456 If your branch was based on <upstream> but <upstream> was rewound and
457 your branch contains commits which were dropped, this option can be used
458 with `--keep-base` in order to drop those commits from your branch.
460 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
462 --ignore-whitespace::
463 Ignore whitespace differences when trying to reconcile
464 differences. Currently, each backend implements an approximation of
467 apply backend: When applying a patch, ignore changes in whitespace in
468 context lines. Unfortunately, this means that if the "old" lines being
469 replaced by the patch differ only in whitespace from the existing
470 file, you will get a merge conflict instead of a successful patch
473 merge backend: Treat lines with only whitespace changes as unchanged
474 when merging. Unfortunately, this means that any patch hunks that were
475 intended to modify whitespace and nothing else will be dropped, even
476 if the other side had no changes that conflicted.
478 --whitespace=<option>::
479 This flag is passed to the 'git apply' program
480 (see linkgit:git-apply[1]) that applies the patch.
483 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
485 --committer-date-is-author-date::
486 Instead of using the current time as the committer date, use
487 the author date of the commit being rebased as the committer
488 date. This option implies `--force-rebase`.
491 --reset-author-date::
492 Instead of using the author date of the original commit, use
493 the current time as the author date of the rebased commit. This
494 option implies `--force-rebase`.
496 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
499 Add a `Signed-off-by` trailer to all the rebased commits. Note
500 that if `--interactive` is given then only commits marked to be
501 picked, edited or reworded will have the trailer added.
503 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
507 Make a list of the commits which are about to be rebased. Let the
508 user edit that list before rebasing. This mode can also be used to
509 split commits (see SPLITTING COMMITS below).
511 The commit list format can be changed by setting the configuration option
512 rebase.instructionFormat. A customized instruction format will automatically
513 have the long commit hash prepended to the format.
515 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
518 --rebase-merges[=(rebase-cousins|no-rebase-cousins)]::
519 By default, a rebase will simply drop merge commits from the todo
520 list, and put the rebased commits into a single, linear branch.
521 With `--rebase-merges`, the rebase will instead try to preserve
522 the branching structure within the commits that are to be rebased,
523 by recreating the merge commits. Any resolved merge conflicts or
524 manual amendments in these merge commits will have to be
525 resolved/re-applied manually.
527 By default, or when `no-rebase-cousins` was specified, commits which do not
528 have `<upstream>` as direct ancestor will keep their original branch point,
529 i.e. commits that would be excluded by linkgit:git-log[1]'s
530 `--ancestry-path` option will keep their original ancestry by default. If
531 the `rebase-cousins` mode is turned on, such commits are instead rebased
532 onto `<upstream>` (or `<onto>`, if specified).
534 The `--rebase-merges` mode is similar in spirit to the deprecated
535 `--preserve-merges` but works with interactive rebases,
536 where commits can be reordered, inserted and dropped at will.
538 It is currently only possible to recreate the merge commits using the
539 `recursive` merge strategy; Different merge strategies can be used only via
540 explicit `exec git merge -s <strategy> [...]` commands.
542 See also REBASING MERGES and INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
546 [DEPRECATED: use `--rebase-merges` instead] Recreate merge commits
547 instead of flattening the history by replaying commits a merge commit
548 introduces. Merge conflict resolutions or manual amendments to merge
549 commits are not preserved.
551 This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but combining it
552 with the `--interactive` option explicitly is generally not a good
553 idea unless you know what you are doing (see BUGS below).
555 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
559 Append "exec <cmd>" after each line creating a commit in the
560 final history. <cmd> will be interpreted as one or more shell
561 commands. Any command that fails will interrupt the rebase,
564 You may execute several commands by either using one instance of `--exec`
565 with several commands:
567 git rebase -i --exec "cmd1 && cmd2 && ..."
569 or by giving more than one `--exec`:
571 git rebase -i --exec "cmd1" --exec "cmd2" --exec ...
573 If `--autosquash` is used, "exec" lines will not be appended for
574 the intermediate commits, and will only appear at the end of each
577 This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but it can be run
578 without an explicit `--interactive`.
580 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
583 Rebase all commits reachable from <branch>, instead of
584 limiting them with an <upstream>. This allows you to rebase
585 the root commit(s) on a branch. When used with --onto, it
586 will skip changes already contained in <newbase> (instead of
587 <upstream>) whereas without --onto it will operate on every change.
588 When used together with both --onto and --preserve-merges,
589 'all' root commits will be rewritten to have <newbase> as parent
592 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
596 When the commit log message begins with "squash! ..." or "fixup! ..."
597 or "amend! ...", and there is already a commit in the todo list that
598 matches the same `...`, automatically modify the todo list of
599 `rebase -i`, so that the commit marked for squashing comes right after
600 the commit to be modified, and change the action of the moved commit
601 from `pick` to `squash` or `fixup` or `fixup -C` respectively. A commit
602 matches the `...` if the commit subject matches, or if the `...` refers
603 to the commit's hash. As a fall-back, partial matches of the commit
604 subject work, too. The recommended way to create fixup/amend/squash
605 commits is by using the `--fixup`, `--fixup=amend:` or `--fixup=reword:`
606 and `--squash` options respectively of linkgit:git-commit[1].
608 If the `--autosquash` option is enabled by default using the
609 configuration variable `rebase.autoSquash`, this option can be
610 used to override and disable this setting.
612 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
616 Automatically create a temporary stash entry before the operation
617 begins, and apply it after the operation ends. This means
618 that you can run rebase on a dirty worktree. However, use
619 with care: the final stash application after a successful
620 rebase might result in non-trivial conflicts.
622 --reschedule-failed-exec::
623 --no-reschedule-failed-exec::
624 Automatically reschedule `exec` commands that failed. This only makes
625 sense in interactive mode (or when an `--exec` option was provided).
630 The following options:
636 are incompatible with the following options:
641 * --allow-empty-message
649 * --reapply-cherry-picks
651 * --root when used in combination with --onto
653 In addition, the following pairs of options are incompatible:
655 * --preserve-merges and --interactive
656 * --preserve-merges and --signoff
657 * --preserve-merges and --rebase-merges
658 * --preserve-merges and --empty=
659 * --preserve-merges and --ignore-whitespace
660 * --preserve-merges and --committer-date-is-author-date
661 * --preserve-merges and --ignore-date
662 * --keep-base and --onto
663 * --keep-base and --root
664 * --fork-point and --root
666 BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES
667 -----------------------
669 git rebase has two primary backends: apply and merge. (The apply
670 backend used to be known as the 'am' backend, but the name led to
671 confusion as it looks like a verb instead of a noun. Also, the merge
672 backend used to be known as the interactive backend, but it is now
673 used for non-interactive cases as well. Both were renamed based on
674 lower-level functionality that underpinned each.) There are some
675 subtle differences in how these two backends behave:
680 The apply backend unfortunately drops intentionally empty commits, i.e.
681 commits that started empty, though these are rare in practice. It
682 also drops commits that become empty and has no option for controlling
685 The merge backend keeps intentionally empty commits by default (though
686 with -i they are marked as empty in the todo list editor, or they can
687 be dropped automatically with --no-keep-empty).
689 Similar to the apply backend, by default the merge backend drops
690 commits that become empty unless -i/--interactive is specified (in
691 which case it stops and asks the user what to do). The merge backend
692 also has an --empty={drop,keep,ask} option for changing the behavior
693 of handling commits that become empty.
695 Directory rename detection
696 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
698 Due to the lack of accurate tree information (arising from
699 constructing fake ancestors with the limited information available in
700 patches), directory rename detection is disabled in the apply backend.
701 Disabled directory rename detection means that if one side of history
702 renames a directory and the other adds new files to the old directory,
703 then the new files will be left behind in the old directory without
704 any warning at the time of rebasing that you may want to move these
705 files into the new directory.
707 Directory rename detection works with the merge backend to provide you
708 warnings in such cases.
713 The apply backend works by creating a sequence of patches (by calling
714 `format-patch` internally), and then applying the patches in sequence
715 (calling `am` internally). Patches are composed of multiple hunks,
716 each with line numbers, a context region, and the actual changes. The
717 line numbers have to be taken with some fuzz, since the other side
718 will likely have inserted or deleted lines earlier in the file. The
719 context region is meant to help find how to adjust the line numbers in
720 order to apply the changes to the right lines. However, if multiple
721 areas of the code have the same surrounding lines of context, the
722 wrong one can be picked. There are real-world cases where this has
723 caused commits to be reapplied incorrectly with no conflicts reported.
724 Setting diff.context to a larger value may prevent such types of
725 problems, but increases the chance of spurious conflicts (since it
726 will require more lines of matching context to apply).
728 The merge backend works with a full copy of each relevant file,
729 insulating it from these types of problems.
731 Labelling of conflicts markers
732 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
734 When there are content conflicts, the merge machinery tries to
735 annotate each side's conflict markers with the commits where the
736 content came from. Since the apply backend drops the original
737 information about the rebased commits and their parents (and instead
738 generates new fake commits based off limited information in the
739 generated patches), those commits cannot be identified; instead it has
740 to fall back to a commit summary. Also, when merge.conflictStyle is
741 set to diff3, the apply backend will use "constructed merge base" to
742 label the content from the merge base, and thus provide no information
743 about the merge base commit whatsoever.
745 The merge backend works with the full commits on both sides of history
746 and thus has no such limitations.
751 The apply backend has not traditionally called the post-commit hook,
752 while the merge backend has. Both have called the post-checkout hook,
753 though the merge backend has squelched its output. Further, both
754 backends only call the post-checkout hook with the starting point
755 commit of the rebase, not the intermediate commits nor the final
756 commit. In each case, the calling of these hooks was by accident of
757 implementation rather than by design (both backends were originally
758 implemented as shell scripts and happened to invoke other commands
759 like 'git checkout' or 'git commit' that would call the hooks). Both
760 backends should have the same behavior, though it is not entirely
761 clear which, if any, is correct. We will likely make rebase stop
762 calling either of these hooks in the future.
767 The apply backend has safety problems with an ill-timed interrupt; if
768 the user presses Ctrl-C at the wrong time to try to abort the rebase,
769 the rebase can enter a state where it cannot be aborted with a
770 subsequent `git rebase --abort`. The merge backend does not appear to
771 suffer from the same shortcoming. (See
772 https://lore.kernel.org/git/20200207132152.GC2868@szeder.dev/ for
778 When a conflict occurs while rebasing, rebase stops and asks the user
779 to resolve. Since the user may need to make notable changes while
780 resolving conflicts, after conflicts are resolved and the user has run
781 `git rebase --continue`, the rebase should open an editor and ask the
782 user to update the commit message. The merge backend does this, while
783 the apply backend blindly applies the original commit message.
785 Miscellaneous differences
786 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
788 There are a few more behavioral differences that most folks would
789 probably consider inconsequential but which are mentioned for
792 * Reflog: The two backends will use different wording when describing
793 the changes made in the reflog, though both will make use of the
796 * Progress, informational, and error messages: The two backends
797 provide slightly different progress and informational messages.
798 Also, the apply backend writes error messages (such as "Your files
799 would be overwritten...") to stdout, while the merge backend writes
802 * State directories: The two backends keep their state in different
803 directories under .git/
805 include::merge-strategies.txt[]
810 You should understand the implications of using 'git rebase' on a
811 repository that you share. See also RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE
814 When the git-rebase command is run, it will first execute a "pre-rebase"
815 hook if one exists. You can use this hook to do sanity checks and
816 reject the rebase if it isn't appropriate. Please see the template
817 pre-rebase hook script for an example.
819 Upon completion, <branch> will be the current branch.
824 Rebasing interactively means that you have a chance to edit the commits
825 which are rebased. You can reorder the commits, and you can
826 remove them (weeding out bad or otherwise unwanted patches).
828 The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow:
830 1. have a wonderful idea
832 3. prepare a series for submission
835 where point 2. consists of several instances of
839 1. finish something worthy of a commit
844 1. realize that something does not work
848 Sometimes the thing fixed in b.2. cannot be amended to the not-quite
849 perfect commit it fixes, because that commit is buried deeply in a
850 patch series. That is exactly what interactive rebase is for: use it
851 after plenty of "a"s and "b"s, by rearranging and editing
852 commits, and squashing multiple commits into one.
854 Start it with the last commit you want to retain as-is:
856 git rebase -i <after-this-commit>
858 An editor will be fired up with all the commits in your current branch
859 (ignoring merge commits), which come after the given commit. You can
860 reorder the commits in this list to your heart's content, and you can
861 remove them. The list looks more or less like this:
863 -------------------------------------------
864 pick deadbee The oneline of this commit
865 pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
867 -------------------------------------------
869 The oneline descriptions are purely for your pleasure; 'git rebase' will
870 not look at them but at the commit names ("deadbee" and "fa1afe1" in this
871 example), so do not delete or edit the names.
873 By replacing the command "pick" with the command "edit", you can tell
874 'git rebase' to stop after applying that commit, so that you can edit
875 the files and/or the commit message, amend the commit, and continue
878 To interrupt the rebase (just like an "edit" command would do, but without
879 cherry-picking any commit first), use the "break" command.
881 If you just want to edit the commit message for a commit, replace the
882 command "pick" with the command "reword".
884 To drop a commit, replace the command "pick" with "drop", or just
885 delete the matching line.
887 If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command
888 "pick" for the second and subsequent commits with "squash" or "fixup".
889 If the commits had different authors, the folded commit will be
890 attributed to the author of the first commit. The suggested commit
891 message for the folded commit is the concatenation of the first
892 commit's message with those identified by "squash" commands, omitting the
893 messages of commits identified by "fixup" commands, unless "fixup -c"
894 is used. In that case the suggested commit message is only the message
895 of the "fixup -c" commit, and an editor is opened allowing you to edit
896 the message. The contents (patch) of the "fixup -c" commit are still
897 incorporated into the folded commit. If there is more than one "fixup -c"
898 commit, the message from the final one is used. You can also use
899 "fixup -C" to get the same behavior as "fixup -c" except without opening
903 'git rebase' will stop when "pick" has been replaced with "edit" or
904 when a command fails due to merge errors. When you are done editing
905 and/or resolving conflicts you can continue with `git rebase --continue`.
907 For example, if you want to reorder the last 5 commits, such that what
908 was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call
909 'git rebase' like this:
911 ----------------------
912 $ git rebase -i HEAD~5
913 ----------------------
915 And move the first patch to the end of the list.
917 You might want to recreate merge commits, e.g. if you have a history
928 Suppose you want to rebase the side branch starting at "A" to "Q". Make
929 sure that the current HEAD is "B", and call
931 -----------------------------
932 $ git rebase -i -r --onto Q O
933 -----------------------------
935 Reordering and editing commits usually creates untested intermediate
936 steps. You may want to check that your history editing did not break
937 anything by running a test, or at least recompiling at intermediate
938 points in history by using the "exec" command (shortcut "x"). You may
939 do so by creating a todo list like this one:
941 -------------------------------------------
942 pick deadbee Implement feature XXX
943 fixup f1a5c00 Fix to feature XXX
945 pick c0ffeee The oneline of the next commit
946 edit deadbab The oneline of the commit after
947 exec cd subdir; make test
949 -------------------------------------------
951 The interactive rebase will stop when a command fails (i.e. exits with
952 non-0 status) to give you an opportunity to fix the problem. You can
953 continue with `git rebase --continue`.
955 The "exec" command launches the command in a shell (the one specified
956 in `$SHELL`, or the default shell if `$SHELL` is not set), so you can
957 use shell features (like "cd", ">", ";" ...). The command is run from
958 the root of the working tree.
960 ----------------------------------
961 $ git rebase -i --exec "make test"
962 ----------------------------------
964 This command lets you check that intermediate commits are compilable.
965 The todo list becomes like that:
981 In interactive mode, you can mark commits with the action "edit". However,
982 this does not necessarily mean that 'git rebase' expects the result of this
983 edit to be exactly one commit. Indeed, you can undo the commit, or you can
984 add other commits. This can be used to split a commit into two:
986 - Start an interactive rebase with `git rebase -i <commit>^`, where
987 <commit> is the commit you want to split. In fact, any commit range
988 will do, as long as it contains that commit.
990 - Mark the commit you want to split with the action "edit".
992 - When it comes to editing that commit, execute `git reset HEAD^`. The
993 effect is that the HEAD is rewound by one, and the index follows suit.
994 However, the working tree stays the same.
996 - Now add the changes to the index that you want to have in the first
997 commit. You can use `git add` (possibly interactively) or
998 'git gui' (or both) to do that.
1000 - Commit the now-current index with whatever commit message is appropriate
1003 - Repeat the last two steps until your working tree is clean.
1005 - Continue the rebase with `git rebase --continue`.
1007 If you are not absolutely sure that the intermediate revisions are
1008 consistent (they compile, pass the testsuite, etc.) you should use
1009 'git stash' to stash away the not-yet-committed changes
1010 after each commit, test, and amend the commit if fixes are necessary.
1013 RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE
1014 -------------------------------
1016 Rebasing (or any other form of rewriting) a branch that others have
1017 based work on is a bad idea: anyone downstream of it is forced to
1018 manually fix their history. This section explains how to do the fix
1019 from the downstream's point of view. The real fix, however, would be
1020 to avoid rebasing the upstream in the first place.
1022 To illustrate, suppose you are in a situation where someone develops a
1023 'subsystem' branch, and you are working on a 'topic' that is dependent
1024 on this 'subsystem'. You might end up with a history like the
1028 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
1030 o---o---o---o---o subsystem
1035 If 'subsystem' is rebased against 'master', the following happens:
1038 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
1040 o---o---o---o---o o'--o'--o'--o'--o' subsystem
1045 If you now continue development as usual, and eventually merge 'topic'
1046 to 'subsystem', the commits from 'subsystem' will remain duplicated forever:
1049 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
1051 o---o---o---o---o o'--o'--o'--o'--o'--M subsystem
1053 *---*---*-..........-*--* topic
1056 Such duplicates are generally frowned upon because they clutter up
1057 history, making it harder to follow. To clean things up, you need to
1058 transplant the commits on 'topic' to the new 'subsystem' tip, i.e.,
1059 rebase 'topic'. This becomes a ripple effect: anyone downstream from
1060 'topic' is forced to rebase too, and so on!
1062 There are two kinds of fixes, discussed in the following subsections:
1064 Easy case: The changes are literally the same.::
1066 This happens if the 'subsystem' rebase was a simple rebase and
1069 Hard case: The changes are not the same.::
1071 This happens if the 'subsystem' rebase had conflicts, or used
1072 `--interactive` to omit, edit, squash, or fixup commits; or
1073 if the upstream used one of `commit --amend`, `reset`, or
1074 a full history rewriting command like
1075 https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo[`filter-repo`].
1081 Only works if the changes (patch IDs based on the diff contents) on
1082 'subsystem' are literally the same before and after the rebase
1085 In that case, the fix is easy because 'git rebase' knows to skip
1086 changes that are already present in the new upstream (unless
1087 `--reapply-cherry-picks` is given). So if you say
1088 (assuming you're on 'topic')
1090 $ git rebase subsystem
1092 you will end up with the fixed history
1094 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
1096 o'--o'--o'--o'--o' subsystem
1105 Things get more complicated if the 'subsystem' changes do not exactly
1106 correspond to the ones before the rebase.
1108 NOTE: While an "easy case recovery" sometimes appears to be successful
1109 even in the hard case, it may have unintended consequences. For
1110 example, a commit that was removed via `git rebase
1111 --interactive` will be **resurrected**!
1113 The idea is to manually tell 'git rebase' "where the old 'subsystem'
1114 ended and your 'topic' began", that is, what the old merge base
1115 between them was. You will have to find a way to name the last commit
1116 of the old 'subsystem', for example:
1118 * With the 'subsystem' reflog: after 'git fetch', the old tip of
1119 'subsystem' is at `subsystem@{1}`. Subsequent fetches will
1120 increase the number. (See linkgit:git-reflog[1].)
1122 * Relative to the tip of 'topic': knowing that your 'topic' has three
1123 commits, the old tip of 'subsystem' must be `topic~3`.
1125 You can then transplant the old `subsystem..topic` to the new tip by
1126 saying (for the reflog case, and assuming you are on 'topic' already):
1128 $ git rebase --onto subsystem subsystem@{1}
1131 The ripple effect of a "hard case" recovery is especially bad:
1132 'everyone' downstream from 'topic' will now have to perform a "hard
1138 The interactive rebase command was originally designed to handle
1139 individual patch series. As such, it makes sense to exclude merge
1140 commits from the todo list, as the developer may have merged the
1141 then-current `master` while working on the branch, only to rebase
1142 all the commits onto `master` eventually (skipping the merge
1145 However, there are legitimate reasons why a developer may want to
1146 recreate merge commits: to keep the branch structure (or "commit
1147 topology") when working on multiple, inter-related branches.
1149 In the following example, the developer works on a topic branch that
1150 refactors the way buttons are defined, and on another topic branch
1151 that uses that refactoring to implement a "Report a bug" button. The
1152 output of `git log --graph --format=%s -5` may look like this:
1155 * Merge branch 'report-a-bug'
1157 | * Add the feedback button
1158 * | Merge branch 'refactor-button'
1161 | * Use the Button class for all buttons
1162 | * Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one
1165 The developer might want to rebase those commits to a newer `master`
1166 while keeping the branch topology, for example when the first topic
1167 branch is expected to be integrated into `master` much earlier than the
1168 second one, say, to resolve merge conflicts with changes to the
1169 DownloadButton class that made it into `master`.
1171 This rebase can be performed using the `--rebase-merges` option.
1172 It will generate a todo list looking like this:
1177 # Branch: refactor-button
1179 pick 123456 Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one
1180 pick 654321 Use the Button class for all buttons
1181 label refactor-button
1183 # Branch: report-a-bug
1184 reset refactor-button # Use the Button class for all buttons
1185 pick abcdef Add the feedback button
1189 merge -C a1b2c3 refactor-button # Merge 'refactor-button'
1190 merge -C 6f5e4d report-a-bug # Merge 'report-a-bug'
1193 In contrast to a regular interactive rebase, there are `label`, `reset`
1194 and `merge` commands in addition to `pick` ones.
1196 The `label` command associates a label with the current HEAD when that
1197 command is executed. These labels are created as worktree-local refs
1198 (`refs/rewritten/<label>`) that will be deleted when the rebase
1199 finishes. That way, rebase operations in multiple worktrees linked to
1200 the same repository do not interfere with one another. If the `label`
1201 command fails, it is rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how
1204 The `reset` command resets the HEAD, index and worktree to the specified
1205 revision. It is similar to an `exec git reset --hard <label>`, but
1206 refuses to overwrite untracked files. If the `reset` command fails, it is
1207 rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how to edit the todo list
1208 (this typically happens when a `reset` command was inserted into the todo
1209 list manually and contains a typo).
1211 The `merge` command will merge the specified revision(s) into whatever
1212 is HEAD at that time. With `-C <original-commit>`, the commit message of
1213 the specified merge commit will be used. When the `-C` is changed to
1214 a lower-case `-c`, the message will be opened in an editor after a
1215 successful merge so that the user can edit the message.
1217 If a `merge` command fails for any reason other than merge conflicts (i.e.
1218 when the merge operation did not even start), it is rescheduled immediately.
1220 At this time, the `merge` command will *always* use the `recursive`
1221 merge strategy for regular merges, and `octopus` for octopus merges,
1222 with no way to choose a different one. To work around
1223 this, an `exec` command can be used to call `git merge` explicitly,
1224 using the fact that the labels are worktree-local refs (the ref
1225 `refs/rewritten/onto` would correspond to the label `onto`, for example).
1227 Note: the first command (`label onto`) labels the revision onto which
1228 the commits are rebased; The name `onto` is just a convention, as a nod
1229 to the `--onto` option.
1231 It is also possible to introduce completely new merge commits from scratch
1232 by adding a command of the form `merge <merge-head>`. This form will
1233 generate a tentative commit message and always open an editor to let the
1234 user edit it. This can be useful e.g. when a topic branch turns out to
1235 address more than a single concern and wants to be split into two or
1236 even more topic branches. Consider this todo list:
1239 pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
1240 pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
1241 pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
1242 pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
1243 pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows
1246 The one commit in this list that is not related to CMake may very well
1247 have been motivated by working on fixing all those bugs introduced by
1248 switching to CMake, but it addresses a different concern. To split this
1249 branch into two topic branches, the todo list could be edited like this:
1254 pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
1258 pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
1259 pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
1260 pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows
1261 pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
1271 The todo list presented by the deprecated `--preserve-merges --interactive`
1272 does not represent the topology of the revision graph (use `--rebase-merges`
1273 instead). Editing commits and rewording their commit messages should work
1274 fine, but attempts to reorder commits tend to produce counterintuitive results.
1275 Use `--rebase-merges` in such scenarios instead.
1277 For example, an attempt to rearrange
1279 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5
1283 1 --- 2 --- 4 --- 3 --- 5
1285 by moving the "pick 4" line will result in the following history:
1294 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite