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[]
211 Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the
212 --onto option is not specified, the starting point is
213 <upstream>. May be any valid commit, and not just an
214 existing branch name.
216 As a special case, you may use "A\...B" as a shortcut for the
217 merge base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can
218 leave out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
221 Set the starting point at which to create the new commits to the
222 merge base of <upstream> <branch>. Running
223 'git rebase --keep-base <upstream> <branch>' is equivalent to
224 running 'git rebase --onto <upstream>... <upstream>'.
226 This option is useful in the case where one is developing a feature on
227 top of an upstream branch. While the feature is being worked on, the
228 upstream branch may advance and it may not be the best idea to keep
229 rebasing on top of the upstream but to keep the base commit as-is.
231 Although both this option and --fork-point find the merge base between
232 <upstream> and <branch>, this option uses the merge base as the _starting
233 point_ on which new commits will be created, whereas --fork-point uses
234 the merge base to determine the _set of commits_ which will be rebased.
236 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
239 Upstream branch to compare against. May be any valid commit,
240 not just an existing branch name. Defaults to the configured
241 upstream for the current branch.
244 Working branch; defaults to HEAD.
247 Restart the rebasing process after having resolved a merge conflict.
250 Abort the rebase operation and reset HEAD to the original
251 branch. If <branch> was provided when the rebase operation was
252 started, then HEAD will be reset to <branch>. Otherwise HEAD
253 will be reset to where it was when the rebase operation was
257 Abort the rebase operation but HEAD is not reset back to the
258 original branch. The index and working tree are also left
259 unchanged as a result.
262 Use applying strategies to rebase (calling `git-am`
263 internally). This option may become a no-op in the future
264 once the merge backend handles everything the apply one does.
266 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
268 --empty={drop,keep,ask}::
269 How to handle commits that are not empty to start and are not
270 clean cherry-picks of any upstream commit, but which become
271 empty after rebasing (because they contain a subset of already
272 upstream changes). With drop (the default), commits that
273 become empty are dropped. With keep, such commits are kept.
274 With ask (implied by --interactive), the rebase will halt when
275 an empty commit is applied allowing you to choose whether to
276 drop it, edit files more, or just commit the empty changes.
277 Other options, like --exec, will use the default of drop unless
278 -i/--interactive is explicitly specified.
280 Note that commits which start empty are kept, and commits which are
281 clean cherry-picks (as determined by `git log --cherry-mark ...`) are
284 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
287 No-op. Rebasing commits that started empty (had no change
288 relative to their parent) used to fail and this option would
289 override that behavior, allowing commits with empty changes to
290 be rebased. Now commits with no changes do not cause rebasing
293 See also BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES and INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
295 --allow-empty-message::
296 No-op. Rebasing commits with an empty message used to fail
297 and this option would override that behavior, allowing commits
298 with empty messages to be rebased. Now commits with an empty
299 message do not cause rebasing to halt.
301 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
304 Restart the rebasing process by skipping the current patch.
307 Edit the todo list during an interactive rebase.
309 --show-current-patch::
310 Show the current patch in an interactive rebase or when rebase
311 is stopped because of conflicts. This is the equivalent of
312 `git show REBASE_HEAD`.
316 Use merging strategies to rebase. When the recursive (default) merge
317 strategy is used, this allows rebase to be aware of renames on the
318 upstream side. This is the default.
320 Note that a rebase merge works by replaying each commit from the working
321 branch on top of the <upstream> branch. Because of this, when a merge
322 conflict happens, the side reported as 'ours' is the so-far rebased
323 series, starting with <upstream>, and 'theirs' is the working branch. In
324 other words, the sides are swapped.
326 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
329 --strategy=<strategy>::
330 Use the given merge strategy.
331 If there is no `-s` option 'git merge-recursive' is used
332 instead. This implies --merge.
334 Because 'git rebase' replays each commit from the working branch
335 on top of the <upstream> branch using the given strategy, using
336 the 'ours' strategy simply empties all patches from the <branch>,
337 which makes little sense.
339 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
341 -X <strategy-option>::
342 --strategy-option=<strategy-option>::
343 Pass the <strategy-option> through to the merge strategy.
344 This implies `--merge` and, if no strategy has been
345 specified, `-s recursive`. Note the reversal of 'ours' and
346 'theirs' as noted above for the `-m` option.
348 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
350 --rerere-autoupdate::
351 --no-rerere-autoupdate::
352 Allow the rerere mechanism to update the index with the
353 result of auto-conflict resolution if possible.
356 --gpg-sign[=<keyid>]::
358 GPG-sign commits. The `keyid` argument is optional and
359 defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be
360 stuck to the option without a space. `--no-gpg-sign` is useful to
361 countermand both `commit.gpgSign` configuration variable, and
362 earlier `--gpg-sign`.
366 Be quiet. Implies --no-stat.
370 Be verbose. Implies --stat.
373 Show a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase. The
374 diffstat is also controlled by the configuration option rebase.stat.
378 Do not show a diffstat as part of the rebase process.
381 This option bypasses the pre-rebase hook. See also linkgit:githooks[5].
384 Allows the pre-rebase hook to run, which is the default. This option can
385 be used to override --no-verify. See also linkgit:githooks[5].
388 Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before
389 and after each change. When fewer lines of surrounding
390 context exist they all must match. By default no context is
391 ever ignored. Implies --apply.
393 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
398 Individually replay all rebased commits instead of fast-forwarding
399 over the unchanged ones. This ensures that the entire history of
400 the rebased branch is composed of new commits.
402 You may find this helpful after reverting a topic branch merge, as this option
403 recreates the topic branch with fresh commits so it can be remerged
404 successfully without needing to "revert the reversion" (see the
405 link:howto/revert-a-faulty-merge.html[revert-a-faulty-merge How-To] for
410 Use reflog to find a better common ancestor between <upstream>
411 and <branch> when calculating which commits have been
412 introduced by <branch>.
414 When --fork-point is active, 'fork_point' will be used instead of
415 <upstream> to calculate the set of commits to rebase, where
416 'fork_point' is the result of `git merge-base --fork-point <upstream>
417 <branch>` command (see linkgit:git-merge-base[1]). If 'fork_point'
418 ends up being empty, the <upstream> will be used as a fallback.
420 If either <upstream> or --root is given on the command line, then the
421 default is `--no-fork-point`, otherwise the default is `--fork-point`.
423 If your branch was based on <upstream> but <upstream> was rewound and
424 your branch contains commits which were dropped, this option can be used
425 with `--keep-base` in order to drop those commits from your branch.
427 --ignore-whitespace::
428 --whitespace=<option>::
429 These flags are passed to the 'git apply' program
430 (see linkgit:git-apply[1]) that applies the patch.
433 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
435 --committer-date-is-author-date::
437 These flags are passed to 'git am' to easily change the dates
438 of the rebased commits (see linkgit:git-am[1]).
440 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
443 Add a Signed-off-by: trailer to all the rebased commits. Note
444 that if `--interactive` is given then only commits marked to be
445 picked, edited or reworded will have the trailer added.
447 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
451 Make a list of the commits which are about to be rebased. Let the
452 user edit that list before rebasing. This mode can also be used to
453 split commits (see SPLITTING COMMITS below).
455 The commit list format can be changed by setting the configuration option
456 rebase.instructionFormat. A customized instruction format will automatically
457 have the long commit hash prepended to the format.
459 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
462 --rebase-merges[=(rebase-cousins|no-rebase-cousins)]::
463 By default, a rebase will simply drop merge commits from the todo
464 list, and put the rebased commits into a single, linear branch.
465 With `--rebase-merges`, the rebase will instead try to preserve
466 the branching structure within the commits that are to be rebased,
467 by recreating the merge commits. Any resolved merge conflicts or
468 manual amendments in these merge commits will have to be
469 resolved/re-applied manually.
471 By default, or when `no-rebase-cousins` was specified, commits which do not
472 have `<upstream>` as direct ancestor will keep their original branch point,
473 i.e. commits that would be excluded by linkgit:git-log[1]'s
474 `--ancestry-path` option will keep their original ancestry by default. If
475 the `rebase-cousins` mode is turned on, such commits are instead rebased
476 onto `<upstream>` (or `<onto>`, if specified).
478 The `--rebase-merges` mode is similar in spirit to the deprecated
479 `--preserve-merges` but works with interactive rebases,
480 where commits can be reordered, inserted and dropped at will.
482 It is currently only possible to recreate the merge commits using the
483 `recursive` merge strategy; Different merge strategies can be used only via
484 explicit `exec git merge -s <strategy> [...]` commands.
486 See also REBASING MERGES and INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
490 [DEPRECATED: use `--rebase-merges` instead] Recreate merge commits
491 instead of flattening the history by replaying commits a merge commit
492 introduces. Merge conflict resolutions or manual amendments to merge
493 commits are not preserved.
495 This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but combining it
496 with the `--interactive` option explicitly is generally not a good
497 idea unless you know what you are doing (see BUGS below).
499 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
503 Append "exec <cmd>" after each line creating a commit in the
504 final history. <cmd> will be interpreted as one or more shell
505 commands. Any command that fails will interrupt the rebase,
508 You may execute several commands by either using one instance of `--exec`
509 with several commands:
511 git rebase -i --exec "cmd1 && cmd2 && ..."
513 or by giving more than one `--exec`:
515 git rebase -i --exec "cmd1" --exec "cmd2" --exec ...
517 If `--autosquash` is used, "exec" lines will not be appended for
518 the intermediate commits, and will only appear at the end of each
521 This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but it can be run
522 without an explicit `--interactive`.
524 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
527 Rebase all commits reachable from <branch>, instead of
528 limiting them with an <upstream>. This allows you to rebase
529 the root commit(s) on a branch. When used with --onto, it
530 will skip changes already contained in <newbase> (instead of
531 <upstream>) whereas without --onto it will operate on every change.
532 When used together with both --onto and --preserve-merges,
533 'all' root commits will be rewritten to have <newbase> as parent
536 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
540 When the commit log message begins with "squash! ..." (or
541 "fixup! ..."), and there is already a commit in the todo list that
542 matches the same `...`, automatically modify the todo list of rebase
543 -i so that the commit marked for squashing comes right after the
544 commit to be modified, and change the action of the moved commit
545 from `pick` to `squash` (or `fixup`). A commit matches the `...` if
546 the commit subject matches, or if the `...` refers to the commit's
547 hash. As a fall-back, partial matches of the commit subject work,
548 too. The recommended way to create fixup/squash commits is by using
549 the `--fixup`/`--squash` options of linkgit:git-commit[1].
551 If the `--autosquash` option is enabled by default using the
552 configuration variable `rebase.autoSquash`, this option can be
553 used to override and disable this setting.
555 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
559 Automatically create a temporary stash entry before the operation
560 begins, and apply it after the operation ends. This means
561 that you can run rebase on a dirty worktree. However, use
562 with care: the final stash application after a successful
563 rebase might result in non-trivial conflicts.
565 --reschedule-failed-exec::
566 --no-reschedule-failed-exec::
567 Automatically reschedule `exec` commands that failed. This only makes
568 sense in interactive mode (or when an `--exec` option was provided).
573 The following options:
576 * --committer-date-is-author-date
578 * --ignore-whitespace
582 are incompatible with the following options:
587 * --allow-empty-message
596 * --root when used in combination with --onto
598 In addition, the following pairs of options are incompatible:
600 * --preserve-merges and --interactive
601 * --preserve-merges and --signoff
602 * --preserve-merges and --rebase-merges
603 * --preserve-merges and --empty=
604 * --keep-base and --onto
605 * --keep-base and --root
607 BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES
608 -----------------------
610 git rebase has two primary backends: apply and merge. (The apply
611 backend used to known as the 'am' backend, but the name led to
612 confusion as it looks like a verb instead of a noun. Also, the merge
613 backend used to be known as the interactive backend, but it is now
614 used for non-interactive cases as well. Both were renamed based on
615 lower-level functionality that underpinned each.) There are some
616 subtle differences in how these two backends behave:
621 The apply backend unfortunately drops intentionally empty commits, i.e.
622 commits that started empty, though these are rare in practice. It
623 also drops commits that become empty and has no option for controlling
626 The merge backend keeps intentionally empty commits. Similar to the
627 apply backend, by default the merge backend drops commits that become
628 empty unless -i/--interactive is specified (in which case it stops and
629 asks the user what to do). The merge backend also has an
630 --empty={drop,keep,ask} option for changing the behavior of handling
631 commits that become empty.
633 Directory rename detection
634 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
636 Due to the lack of accurate tree information (arising from
637 constructing fake ancestors with the limited information available in
638 patches), directory rename detection is disabled in the apply backend.
639 Disabled directory rename detection means that if one side of history
640 renames a directory and the other adds new files to the old directory,
641 then the new files will be left behind in the old directory without
642 any warning at the time of rebasing that you may want to move these
643 files into the new directory.
645 Directory rename detection works with the merge backend to provide you
646 warnings in such cases.
651 The apply backend works by creating a sequence of patches (by calling
652 `format-patch` internally), and then applying the patches in sequence
653 (calling `am` internally). Patches are composed of multiple hunks,
654 each with line numbers, a context region, and the actual changes. The
655 line numbers have to be taken with some fuzz, since the other side
656 will likely have inserted or deleted lines earlier in the file. The
657 context region is meant to help find how to adjust the line numbers in
658 order to apply the changes to the right lines. However, if multiple
659 areas of the code have the same surrounding lines of context, the
660 wrong one can be picked. There are real-world cases where this has
661 caused commits to be reapplied incorrectly with no conflicts reported.
662 Setting diff.context to a larger value may prevent such types of
663 problems, but increases the chance of spurious conflicts (since it
664 will require more lines of matching context to apply).
666 The merge backend works with a full copy of each relevant file,
667 insulating it from these types of problems.
669 Labelling of conflicts markers
670 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
672 When there are content conflicts, the merge machinery tries to
673 annotate each side's conflict markers with the commits where the
674 content came from. Since the apply backend drops the original
675 information about the rebased commits and their parents (and instead
676 generates new fake commits based off limited information in the
677 generated patches), those commits cannot be identified; instead it has
678 to fall back to a commit summary. Also, when merge.conflictStyle is
679 set to diff3, the apply backend will use "constructed merge base" to
680 label the content from the merge base, and thus provide no information
681 about the merge base commit whatsoever.
683 The merge backend works with the full commits on both sides of history
684 and thus has no such limitations.
689 The apply backend has not traditionally called the post-commit hook,
690 while the merge backend has. However, this was by accident of
691 implementation rather than by design. Both backends should have the
692 same behavior, though it is not clear which one is correct.
697 The apply backend has safety problems with an ill-timed interrupt; if
698 the user presses Ctrl-C at the wrong time to try to abort the rebase,
699 the rebase can enter a state where it cannot be aborted with a
700 subsequent `git rebase --abort`. The merge backend does not appear to
701 suffer from the same shortcoming. (See
702 https://lore.kernel.org/git/20200207132152.GC2868@szeder.dev/ for
708 When a conflict occurs while rebasing, rebase stops and asks the user
709 to resolve. Since the user may need to make notable changes while
710 resolving conflicts, after conflicts are resolved and the user has run
711 `git rebase --continue`, the rebase should open an editor and ask the
712 user to update the commit message. The merge backend does this, while
713 the apply backend blindly applies the original commit message.
715 Miscellaneous differences
716 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
718 There are a few more behavioral differences that most folks would
719 probably consider inconsequential but which are mentioned for
722 * Reflog: The two backends will use different wording when describing
723 the changes made in the reflog, though both will make use of the
726 * Progress, informational, and error messages: The two backends
727 provide slightly different progress and informational messages.
728 Also, the apply backend writes error messages (such as "Your files
729 would be overwritten...") to stdout, while the merge backend writes
732 * State directories: The two backends keep their state in different
733 directories under .git/
735 include::merge-strategies.txt[]
740 You should understand the implications of using 'git rebase' on a
741 repository that you share. See also RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE
744 When the git-rebase command is run, it will first execute a "pre-rebase"
745 hook if one exists. You can use this hook to do sanity checks and
746 reject the rebase if it isn't appropriate. Please see the template
747 pre-rebase hook script for an example.
749 Upon completion, <branch> will be the current branch.
754 Rebasing interactively means that you have a chance to edit the commits
755 which are rebased. You can reorder the commits, and you can
756 remove them (weeding out bad or otherwise unwanted patches).
758 The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow:
760 1. have a wonderful idea
762 3. prepare a series for submission
765 where point 2. consists of several instances of
769 1. finish something worthy of a commit
774 1. realize that something does not work
778 Sometimes the thing fixed in b.2. cannot be amended to the not-quite
779 perfect commit it fixes, because that commit is buried deeply in a
780 patch series. That is exactly what interactive rebase is for: use it
781 after plenty of "a"s and "b"s, by rearranging and editing
782 commits, and squashing multiple commits into one.
784 Start it with the last commit you want to retain as-is:
786 git rebase -i <after-this-commit>
788 An editor will be fired up with all the commits in your current branch
789 (ignoring merge commits), which come after the given commit. You can
790 reorder the commits in this list to your heart's content, and you can
791 remove them. The list looks more or less like this:
793 -------------------------------------------
794 pick deadbee The oneline of this commit
795 pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
797 -------------------------------------------
799 The oneline descriptions are purely for your pleasure; 'git rebase' will
800 not look at them but at the commit names ("deadbee" and "fa1afe1" in this
801 example), so do not delete or edit the names.
803 By replacing the command "pick" with the command "edit", you can tell
804 'git rebase' to stop after applying that commit, so that you can edit
805 the files and/or the commit message, amend the commit, and continue
808 To interrupt the rebase (just like an "edit" command would do, but without
809 cherry-picking any commit first), use the "break" command.
811 If you just want to edit the commit message for a commit, replace the
812 command "pick" with the command "reword".
814 To drop a commit, replace the command "pick" with "drop", or just
815 delete the matching line.
817 If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command
818 "pick" for the second and subsequent commits with "squash" or "fixup".
819 If the commits had different authors, the folded commit will be
820 attributed to the author of the first commit. The suggested commit
821 message for the folded commit is the concatenation of the commit
822 messages of the first commit and of those with the "squash" command,
823 but omits the commit messages of commits with the "fixup" command.
825 'git rebase' will stop when "pick" has been replaced with "edit" or
826 when a command fails due to merge errors. When you are done editing
827 and/or resolving conflicts you can continue with `git rebase --continue`.
829 For example, if you want to reorder the last 5 commits, such that what
830 was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call
831 'git rebase' like this:
833 ----------------------
834 $ git rebase -i HEAD~5
835 ----------------------
837 And move the first patch to the end of the list.
839 You might want to recreate merge commits, e.g. if you have a history
850 Suppose you want to rebase the side branch starting at "A" to "Q". Make
851 sure that the current HEAD is "B", and call
853 -----------------------------
854 $ git rebase -i -r --onto Q O
855 -----------------------------
857 Reordering and editing commits usually creates untested intermediate
858 steps. You may want to check that your history editing did not break
859 anything by running a test, or at least recompiling at intermediate
860 points in history by using the "exec" command (shortcut "x"). You may
861 do so by creating a todo list like this one:
863 -------------------------------------------
864 pick deadbee Implement feature XXX
865 fixup f1a5c00 Fix to feature XXX
867 pick c0ffeee The oneline of the next commit
868 edit deadbab The oneline of the commit after
869 exec cd subdir; make test
871 -------------------------------------------
873 The interactive rebase will stop when a command fails (i.e. exits with
874 non-0 status) to give you an opportunity to fix the problem. You can
875 continue with `git rebase --continue`.
877 The "exec" command launches the command in a shell (the one specified
878 in `$SHELL`, or the default shell if `$SHELL` is not set), so you can
879 use shell features (like "cd", ">", ";" ...). The command is run from
880 the root of the working tree.
882 ----------------------------------
883 $ git rebase -i --exec "make test"
884 ----------------------------------
886 This command lets you check that intermediate commits are compilable.
887 The todo list becomes like that:
903 In interactive mode, you can mark commits with the action "edit". However,
904 this does not necessarily mean that 'git rebase' expects the result of this
905 edit to be exactly one commit. Indeed, you can undo the commit, or you can
906 add other commits. This can be used to split a commit into two:
908 - Start an interactive rebase with `git rebase -i <commit>^`, where
909 <commit> is the commit you want to split. In fact, any commit range
910 will do, as long as it contains that commit.
912 - Mark the commit you want to split with the action "edit".
914 - When it comes to editing that commit, execute `git reset HEAD^`. The
915 effect is that the HEAD is rewound by one, and the index follows suit.
916 However, the working tree stays the same.
918 - Now add the changes to the index that you want to have in the first
919 commit. You can use `git add` (possibly interactively) or
920 'git gui' (or both) to do that.
922 - Commit the now-current index with whatever commit message is appropriate
925 - Repeat the last two steps until your working tree is clean.
927 - Continue the rebase with `git rebase --continue`.
929 If you are not absolutely sure that the intermediate revisions are
930 consistent (they compile, pass the testsuite, etc.) you should use
931 'git stash' to stash away the not-yet-committed changes
932 after each commit, test, and amend the commit if fixes are necessary.
935 RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE
936 -------------------------------
938 Rebasing (or any other form of rewriting) a branch that others have
939 based work on is a bad idea: anyone downstream of it is forced to
940 manually fix their history. This section explains how to do the fix
941 from the downstream's point of view. The real fix, however, would be
942 to avoid rebasing the upstream in the first place.
944 To illustrate, suppose you are in a situation where someone develops a
945 'subsystem' branch, and you are working on a 'topic' that is dependent
946 on this 'subsystem'. You might end up with a history like the
950 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
952 o---o---o---o---o subsystem
957 If 'subsystem' is rebased against 'master', the following happens:
960 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
962 o---o---o---o---o o'--o'--o'--o'--o' subsystem
967 If you now continue development as usual, and eventually merge 'topic'
968 to 'subsystem', the commits from 'subsystem' will remain duplicated forever:
971 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
973 o---o---o---o---o o'--o'--o'--o'--o'--M subsystem
975 *---*---*-..........-*--* topic
978 Such duplicates are generally frowned upon because they clutter up
979 history, making it harder to follow. To clean things up, you need to
980 transplant the commits on 'topic' to the new 'subsystem' tip, i.e.,
981 rebase 'topic'. This becomes a ripple effect: anyone downstream from
982 'topic' is forced to rebase too, and so on!
984 There are two kinds of fixes, discussed in the following subsections:
986 Easy case: The changes are literally the same.::
988 This happens if the 'subsystem' rebase was a simple rebase and
991 Hard case: The changes are not the same.::
993 This happens if the 'subsystem' rebase had conflicts, or used
994 `--interactive` to omit, edit, squash, or fixup commits; or
995 if the upstream used one of `commit --amend`, `reset`, or
996 a full history rewriting command like
997 https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo[`filter-repo`].
1003 Only works if the changes (patch IDs based on the diff contents) on
1004 'subsystem' are literally the same before and after the rebase
1007 In that case, the fix is easy because 'git rebase' knows to skip
1008 changes that are already present in the new upstream. So if you say
1009 (assuming you're on 'topic')
1011 $ git rebase subsystem
1013 you will end up with the fixed history
1015 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
1017 o'--o'--o'--o'--o' subsystem
1026 Things get more complicated if the 'subsystem' changes do not exactly
1027 correspond to the ones before the rebase.
1029 NOTE: While an "easy case recovery" sometimes appears to be successful
1030 even in the hard case, it may have unintended consequences. For
1031 example, a commit that was removed via `git rebase
1032 --interactive` will be **resurrected**!
1034 The idea is to manually tell 'git rebase' "where the old 'subsystem'
1035 ended and your 'topic' began", that is, what the old merge base
1036 between them was. You will have to find a way to name the last commit
1037 of the old 'subsystem', for example:
1039 * With the 'subsystem' reflog: after 'git fetch', the old tip of
1040 'subsystem' is at `subsystem@{1}`. Subsequent fetches will
1041 increase the number. (See linkgit:git-reflog[1].)
1043 * Relative to the tip of 'topic': knowing that your 'topic' has three
1044 commits, the old tip of 'subsystem' must be `topic~3`.
1046 You can then transplant the old `subsystem..topic` to the new tip by
1047 saying (for the reflog case, and assuming you are on 'topic' already):
1049 $ git rebase --onto subsystem subsystem@{1}
1052 The ripple effect of a "hard case" recovery is especially bad:
1053 'everyone' downstream from 'topic' will now have to perform a "hard
1059 The interactive rebase command was originally designed to handle
1060 individual patch series. As such, it makes sense to exclude merge
1061 commits from the todo list, as the developer may have merged the
1062 then-current `master` while working on the branch, only to rebase
1063 all the commits onto `master` eventually (skipping the merge
1066 However, there are legitimate reasons why a developer may want to
1067 recreate merge commits: to keep the branch structure (or "commit
1068 topology") when working on multiple, inter-related branches.
1070 In the following example, the developer works on a topic branch that
1071 refactors the way buttons are defined, and on another topic branch
1072 that uses that refactoring to implement a "Report a bug" button. The
1073 output of `git log --graph --format=%s -5` may look like this:
1076 * Merge branch 'report-a-bug'
1078 | * Add the feedback button
1079 * | Merge branch 'refactor-button'
1082 | * Use the Button class for all buttons
1083 | * Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one
1086 The developer might want to rebase those commits to a newer `master`
1087 while keeping the branch topology, for example when the first topic
1088 branch is expected to be integrated into `master` much earlier than the
1089 second one, say, to resolve merge conflicts with changes to the
1090 DownloadButton class that made it into `master`.
1092 This rebase can be performed using the `--rebase-merges` option.
1093 It will generate a todo list looking like this:
1098 # Branch: refactor-button
1100 pick 123456 Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one
1101 pick 654321 Use the Button class for all buttons
1102 label refactor-button
1104 # Branch: report-a-bug
1105 reset refactor-button # Use the Button class for all buttons
1106 pick abcdef Add the feedback button
1110 merge -C a1b2c3 refactor-button # Merge 'refactor-button'
1111 merge -C 6f5e4d report-a-bug # Merge 'report-a-bug'
1114 In contrast to a regular interactive rebase, there are `label`, `reset`
1115 and `merge` commands in addition to `pick` ones.
1117 The `label` command associates a label with the current HEAD when that
1118 command is executed. These labels are created as worktree-local refs
1119 (`refs/rewritten/<label>`) that will be deleted when the rebase
1120 finishes. That way, rebase operations in multiple worktrees linked to
1121 the same repository do not interfere with one another. If the `label`
1122 command fails, it is rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how
1125 The `reset` command resets the HEAD, index and worktree to the specified
1126 revision. It is similar to an `exec git reset --hard <label>`, but
1127 refuses to overwrite untracked files. If the `reset` command fails, it is
1128 rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how to edit the todo list
1129 (this typically happens when a `reset` command was inserted into the todo
1130 list manually and contains a typo).
1132 The `merge` command will merge the specified revision(s) into whatever
1133 is HEAD at that time. With `-C <original-commit>`, the commit message of
1134 the specified merge commit will be used. When the `-C` is changed to
1135 a lower-case `-c`, the message will be opened in an editor after a
1136 successful merge so that the user can edit the message.
1138 If a `merge` command fails for any reason other than merge conflicts (i.e.
1139 when the merge operation did not even start), it is rescheduled immediately.
1141 At this time, the `merge` command will *always* use the `recursive`
1142 merge strategy for regular merges, and `octopus` for octopus merges,
1143 with no way to choose a different one. To work around
1144 this, an `exec` command can be used to call `git merge` explicitly,
1145 using the fact that the labels are worktree-local refs (the ref
1146 `refs/rewritten/onto` would correspond to the label `onto`, for example).
1148 Note: the first command (`label onto`) labels the revision onto which
1149 the commits are rebased; The name `onto` is just a convention, as a nod
1150 to the `--onto` option.
1152 It is also possible to introduce completely new merge commits from scratch
1153 by adding a command of the form `merge <merge-head>`. This form will
1154 generate a tentative commit message and always open an editor to let the
1155 user edit it. This can be useful e.g. when a topic branch turns out to
1156 address more than a single concern and wants to be split into two or
1157 even more topic branches. Consider this todo list:
1160 pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
1161 pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
1162 pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
1163 pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
1164 pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows
1167 The one commit in this list that is not related to CMake may very well
1168 have been motivated by working on fixing all those bugs introduced by
1169 switching to CMake, but it addresses a different concern. To split this
1170 branch into two topic branches, the todo list could be edited like this:
1175 pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
1179 pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
1180 pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
1181 pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows
1182 pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
1192 The todo list presented by the deprecated `--preserve-merges --interactive`
1193 does not represent the topology of the revision graph (use `--rebase-merges`
1194 instead). Editing commits and rewording their commit messages should work
1195 fine, but attempts to reorder commits tend to produce counterintuitive results.
1196 Use `--rebase-merges` in such scenarios instead.
1198 For example, an attempt to rearrange
1200 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5
1204 1 --- 2 --- 4 --- 3 --- 5
1206 by moving the "pick 4" line will result in the following history:
1215 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite