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>]::
357 GPG-sign commits. The `keyid` argument is optional and
358 defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be
359 stuck to the option without a space.
363 Be quiet. Implies --no-stat.
367 Be verbose. Implies --stat.
370 Show a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase. The
371 diffstat is also controlled by the configuration option rebase.stat.
375 Do not show a diffstat as part of the rebase process.
378 This option bypasses the pre-rebase hook. See also linkgit:githooks[5].
381 Allows the pre-rebase hook to run, which is the default. This option can
382 be used to override --no-verify. See also linkgit:githooks[5].
385 Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before
386 and after each change. When fewer lines of surrounding
387 context exist they all must match. By default no context is
388 ever ignored. Implies --apply.
390 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
395 Individually replay all rebased commits instead of fast-forwarding
396 over the unchanged ones. This ensures that the entire history of
397 the rebased branch is composed of new commits.
399 You may find this helpful after reverting a topic branch merge, as this option
400 recreates the topic branch with fresh commits so it can be remerged
401 successfully without needing to "revert the reversion" (see the
402 link:howto/revert-a-faulty-merge.html[revert-a-faulty-merge How-To] for
407 Use reflog to find a better common ancestor between <upstream>
408 and <branch> when calculating which commits have been
409 introduced by <branch>.
411 When --fork-point is active, 'fork_point' will be used instead of
412 <upstream> to calculate the set of commits to rebase, where
413 'fork_point' is the result of `git merge-base --fork-point <upstream>
414 <branch>` command (see linkgit:git-merge-base[1]). If 'fork_point'
415 ends up being empty, the <upstream> will be used as a fallback.
417 If either <upstream> or --root is given on the command line, then the
418 default is `--no-fork-point`, otherwise the default is `--fork-point`.
420 If your branch was based on <upstream> but <upstream> was rewound and
421 your branch contains commits which were dropped, this option can be used
422 with `--keep-base` in order to drop those commits from your branch.
424 --ignore-whitespace::
425 --whitespace=<option>::
426 These flags are passed to the 'git apply' program
427 (see linkgit:git-apply[1]) that applies the patch.
430 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
432 --committer-date-is-author-date::
434 These flags are passed to 'git am' to easily change the dates
435 of the rebased commits (see linkgit:git-am[1]).
437 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
440 Add a Signed-off-by: trailer to all the rebased commits. Note
441 that if `--interactive` is given then only commits marked to be
442 picked, edited or reworded will have the trailer added.
444 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
448 Make a list of the commits which are about to be rebased. Let the
449 user edit that list before rebasing. This mode can also be used to
450 split commits (see SPLITTING COMMITS below).
452 The commit list format can be changed by setting the configuration option
453 rebase.instructionFormat. A customized instruction format will automatically
454 have the long commit hash prepended to the format.
456 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
459 --rebase-merges[=(rebase-cousins|no-rebase-cousins)]::
460 By default, a rebase will simply drop merge commits from the todo
461 list, and put the rebased commits into a single, linear branch.
462 With `--rebase-merges`, the rebase will instead try to preserve
463 the branching structure within the commits that are to be rebased,
464 by recreating the merge commits. Any resolved merge conflicts or
465 manual amendments in these merge commits will have to be
466 resolved/re-applied manually.
468 By default, or when `no-rebase-cousins` was specified, commits which do not
469 have `<upstream>` as direct ancestor will keep their original branch point,
470 i.e. commits that would be excluded by linkgit:git-log[1]'s
471 `--ancestry-path` option will keep their original ancestry by default. If
472 the `rebase-cousins` mode is turned on, such commits are instead rebased
473 onto `<upstream>` (or `<onto>`, if specified).
475 The `--rebase-merges` mode is similar in spirit to the deprecated
476 `--preserve-merges` but works with interactive rebases,
477 where commits can be reordered, inserted and dropped at will.
479 It is currently only possible to recreate the merge commits using the
480 `recursive` merge strategy; Different merge strategies can be used only via
481 explicit `exec git merge -s <strategy> [...]` commands.
483 See also REBASING MERGES and INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
487 [DEPRECATED: use `--rebase-merges` instead] Recreate merge commits
488 instead of flattening the history by replaying commits a merge commit
489 introduces. Merge conflict resolutions or manual amendments to merge
490 commits are not preserved.
492 This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but combining it
493 with the `--interactive` option explicitly is generally not a good
494 idea unless you know what you are doing (see BUGS below).
496 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
500 Append "exec <cmd>" after each line creating a commit in the
501 final history. <cmd> will be interpreted as one or more shell
502 commands. Any command that fails will interrupt the rebase,
505 You may execute several commands by either using one instance of `--exec`
506 with several commands:
508 git rebase -i --exec "cmd1 && cmd2 && ..."
510 or by giving more than one `--exec`:
512 git rebase -i --exec "cmd1" --exec "cmd2" --exec ...
514 If `--autosquash` is used, "exec" lines will not be appended for
515 the intermediate commits, and will only appear at the end of each
518 This uses the `--interactive` machinery internally, but it can be run
519 without an explicit `--interactive`.
521 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
524 Rebase all commits reachable from <branch>, instead of
525 limiting them with an <upstream>. This allows you to rebase
526 the root commit(s) on a branch. When used with --onto, it
527 will skip changes already contained in <newbase> (instead of
528 <upstream>) whereas without --onto it will operate on every change.
529 When used together with both --onto and --preserve-merges,
530 'all' root commits will be rewritten to have <newbase> as parent
533 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
537 When the commit log message begins with "squash! ..." (or
538 "fixup! ..."), and there is already a commit in the todo list that
539 matches the same `...`, automatically modify the todo list of rebase
540 -i so that the commit marked for squashing comes right after the
541 commit to be modified, and change the action of the moved commit
542 from `pick` to `squash` (or `fixup`). A commit matches the `...` if
543 the commit subject matches, or if the `...` refers to the commit's
544 hash. As a fall-back, partial matches of the commit subject work,
545 too. The recommended way to create fixup/squash commits is by using
546 the `--fixup`/`--squash` options of linkgit:git-commit[1].
548 If the `--autosquash` option is enabled by default using the
549 configuration variable `rebase.autoSquash`, this option can be
550 used to override and disable this setting.
552 See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
556 Automatically create a temporary stash entry before the operation
557 begins, and apply it after the operation ends. This means
558 that you can run rebase on a dirty worktree. However, use
559 with care: the final stash application after a successful
560 rebase might result in non-trivial conflicts.
562 --reschedule-failed-exec::
563 --no-reschedule-failed-exec::
564 Automatically reschedule `exec` commands that failed. This only makes
565 sense in interactive mode (or when an `--exec` option was provided).
570 The following options:
573 * --committer-date-is-author-date
575 * --ignore-whitespace
579 are incompatible with the following options:
584 * --allow-empty-message
593 * --root when used in combination with --onto
595 In addition, the following pairs of options are incompatible:
597 * --preserve-merges and --interactive
598 * --preserve-merges and --signoff
599 * --preserve-merges and --rebase-merges
600 * --preserve-merges and --empty=
601 * --keep-base and --onto
602 * --keep-base and --root
604 BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES
605 -----------------------
607 git rebase has two primary backends: apply and merge. (The apply
608 backend used to known as the 'am' backend, but the name led to
609 confusion as it looks like a verb instead of a noun. Also, the merge
610 backend used to be known as the interactive backend, but it is now
611 used for non-interactive cases as well. Both were renamed based on
612 lower-level functionality that underpinned each.) There are some
613 subtle differences in how these two backends behave:
618 The apply backend unfortunately drops intentionally empty commits, i.e.
619 commits that started empty, though these are rare in practice. It
620 also drops commits that become empty and has no option for controlling
623 The merge backend keeps intentionally empty commits. Similar to the
624 apply backend, by default the merge backend drops commits that become
625 empty unless -i/--interactive is specified (in which case it stops and
626 asks the user what to do). The merge backend also has an
627 --empty={drop,keep,ask} option for changing the behavior of handling
628 commits that become empty.
630 Directory rename detection
631 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
633 Due to the lack of accurate tree information (arising from
634 constructing fake ancestors with the limited information available in
635 patches), directory rename detection is disabled in the apply backend.
636 Disabled directory rename detection means that if one side of history
637 renames a directory and the other adds new files to the old directory,
638 then the new files will be left behind in the old directory without
639 any warning at the time of rebasing that you may want to move these
640 files into the new directory.
642 Directory rename detection works with the merge backend to provide you
643 warnings in such cases.
648 The apply backend works by creating a sequence of patches (by calling
649 `format-patch` internally), and then applying the patches in sequence
650 (calling `am` internally). Patches are composed of multiple hunks,
651 each with line numbers, a context region, and the actual changes. The
652 line numbers have to be taken with some fuzz, since the other side
653 will likely have inserted or deleted lines earlier in the file. The
654 context region is meant to help find how to adjust the line numbers in
655 order to apply the changes to the right lines. However, if multiple
656 areas of the code have the same surrounding lines of context, the
657 wrong one can be picked. There are real-world cases where this has
658 caused commits to be reapplied incorrectly with no conflicts reported.
659 Setting diff.context to a larger value may prevent such types of
660 problems, but increases the chance of spurious conflicts (since it
661 will require more lines of matching context to apply).
663 The merge backend works with a full copy of each relevant file,
664 insulating it from these types of problems.
666 Labelling of conflicts markers
667 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
669 When there are content conflicts, the merge machinery tries to
670 annotate each side's conflict markers with the commits where the
671 content came from. Since the apply backend drops the original
672 information about the rebased commits and their parents (and instead
673 generates new fake commits based off limited information in the
674 generated patches), those commits cannot be identified; instead it has
675 to fall back to a commit summary. Also, when merge.conflictStyle is
676 set to diff3, the apply backend will use "constructed merge base" to
677 label the content from the merge base, and thus provide no information
678 about the merge base commit whatsoever.
680 The merge backend works with the full commits on both sides of history
681 and thus has no such limitations.
686 The apply backend has not traditionally called the post-commit hook,
687 while the merge backend has. Both have called the post-checkout hook,
688 though the merge backend has squelched its output. Further, both
689 backends only call the post-checkout hook with the starting point
690 commit of the rebase, not the intermediate commits nor the final
691 commit. In each case, the calling of these hooks was by accident of
692 implementation rather than by design (both backends were originally
693 implemented as shell scripts and happened to invoke other commands
694 like 'git checkout' or 'git commit' that would call the hooks). Both
695 backends should have the same behavior, though it is not entirely
696 clear which, if any, is correct. We will likely make rebase stop
697 calling either of these hooks in the future.
702 The apply backend has safety problems with an ill-timed interrupt; if
703 the user presses Ctrl-C at the wrong time to try to abort the rebase,
704 the rebase can enter a state where it cannot be aborted with a
705 subsequent `git rebase --abort`. The merge backend does not appear to
706 suffer from the same shortcoming. (See
707 https://lore.kernel.org/git/20200207132152.GC2868@szeder.dev/ for
713 When a conflict occurs while rebasing, rebase stops and asks the user
714 to resolve. Since the user may need to make notable changes while
715 resolving conflicts, after conflicts are resolved and the user has run
716 `git rebase --continue`, the rebase should open an editor and ask the
717 user to update the commit message. The merge backend does this, while
718 the apply backend blindly applies the original commit message.
720 Miscellaneous differences
721 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
723 There are a few more behavioral differences that most folks would
724 probably consider inconsequential but which are mentioned for
727 * Reflog: The two backends will use different wording when describing
728 the changes made in the reflog, though both will make use of the
731 * Progress, informational, and error messages: The two backends
732 provide slightly different progress and informational messages.
733 Also, the apply backend writes error messages (such as "Your files
734 would be overwritten...") to stdout, while the merge backend writes
737 * State directories: The two backends keep their state in different
738 directories under .git/
740 include::merge-strategies.txt[]
745 You should understand the implications of using 'git rebase' on a
746 repository that you share. See also RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE
749 When the git-rebase command is run, it will first execute a "pre-rebase"
750 hook if one exists. You can use this hook to do sanity checks and
751 reject the rebase if it isn't appropriate. Please see the template
752 pre-rebase hook script for an example.
754 Upon completion, <branch> will be the current branch.
759 Rebasing interactively means that you have a chance to edit the commits
760 which are rebased. You can reorder the commits, and you can
761 remove them (weeding out bad or otherwise unwanted patches).
763 The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow:
765 1. have a wonderful idea
767 3. prepare a series for submission
770 where point 2. consists of several instances of
774 1. finish something worthy of a commit
779 1. realize that something does not work
783 Sometimes the thing fixed in b.2. cannot be amended to the not-quite
784 perfect commit it fixes, because that commit is buried deeply in a
785 patch series. That is exactly what interactive rebase is for: use it
786 after plenty of "a"s and "b"s, by rearranging and editing
787 commits, and squashing multiple commits into one.
789 Start it with the last commit you want to retain as-is:
791 git rebase -i <after-this-commit>
793 An editor will be fired up with all the commits in your current branch
794 (ignoring merge commits), which come after the given commit. You can
795 reorder the commits in this list to your heart's content, and you can
796 remove them. The list looks more or less like this:
798 -------------------------------------------
799 pick deadbee The oneline of this commit
800 pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
802 -------------------------------------------
804 The oneline descriptions are purely for your pleasure; 'git rebase' will
805 not look at them but at the commit names ("deadbee" and "fa1afe1" in this
806 example), so do not delete or edit the names.
808 By replacing the command "pick" with the command "edit", you can tell
809 'git rebase' to stop after applying that commit, so that you can edit
810 the files and/or the commit message, amend the commit, and continue
813 To interrupt the rebase (just like an "edit" command would do, but without
814 cherry-picking any commit first), use the "break" command.
816 If you just want to edit the commit message for a commit, replace the
817 command "pick" with the command "reword".
819 To drop a commit, replace the command "pick" with "drop", or just
820 delete the matching line.
822 If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command
823 "pick" for the second and subsequent commits with "squash" or "fixup".
824 If the commits had different authors, the folded commit will be
825 attributed to the author of the first commit. The suggested commit
826 message for the folded commit is the concatenation of the commit
827 messages of the first commit and of those with the "squash" command,
828 but omits the commit messages of commits with the "fixup" command.
830 'git rebase' will stop when "pick" has been replaced with "edit" or
831 when a command fails due to merge errors. When you are done editing
832 and/or resolving conflicts you can continue with `git rebase --continue`.
834 For example, if you want to reorder the last 5 commits, such that what
835 was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call
836 'git rebase' like this:
838 ----------------------
839 $ git rebase -i HEAD~5
840 ----------------------
842 And move the first patch to the end of the list.
844 You might want to recreate merge commits, e.g. if you have a history
855 Suppose you want to rebase the side branch starting at "A" to "Q". Make
856 sure that the current HEAD is "B", and call
858 -----------------------------
859 $ git rebase -i -r --onto Q O
860 -----------------------------
862 Reordering and editing commits usually creates untested intermediate
863 steps. You may want to check that your history editing did not break
864 anything by running a test, or at least recompiling at intermediate
865 points in history by using the "exec" command (shortcut "x"). You may
866 do so by creating a todo list like this one:
868 -------------------------------------------
869 pick deadbee Implement feature XXX
870 fixup f1a5c00 Fix to feature XXX
872 pick c0ffeee The oneline of the next commit
873 edit deadbab The oneline of the commit after
874 exec cd subdir; make test
876 -------------------------------------------
878 The interactive rebase will stop when a command fails (i.e. exits with
879 non-0 status) to give you an opportunity to fix the problem. You can
880 continue with `git rebase --continue`.
882 The "exec" command launches the command in a shell (the one specified
883 in `$SHELL`, or the default shell if `$SHELL` is not set), so you can
884 use shell features (like "cd", ">", ";" ...). The command is run from
885 the root of the working tree.
887 ----------------------------------
888 $ git rebase -i --exec "make test"
889 ----------------------------------
891 This command lets you check that intermediate commits are compilable.
892 The todo list becomes like that:
908 In interactive mode, you can mark commits with the action "edit". However,
909 this does not necessarily mean that 'git rebase' expects the result of this
910 edit to be exactly one commit. Indeed, you can undo the commit, or you can
911 add other commits. This can be used to split a commit into two:
913 - Start an interactive rebase with `git rebase -i <commit>^`, where
914 <commit> is the commit you want to split. In fact, any commit range
915 will do, as long as it contains that commit.
917 - Mark the commit you want to split with the action "edit".
919 - When it comes to editing that commit, execute `git reset HEAD^`. The
920 effect is that the HEAD is rewound by one, and the index follows suit.
921 However, the working tree stays the same.
923 - Now add the changes to the index that you want to have in the first
924 commit. You can use `git add` (possibly interactively) or
925 'git gui' (or both) to do that.
927 - Commit the now-current index with whatever commit message is appropriate
930 - Repeat the last two steps until your working tree is clean.
932 - Continue the rebase with `git rebase --continue`.
934 If you are not absolutely sure that the intermediate revisions are
935 consistent (they compile, pass the testsuite, etc.) you should use
936 'git stash' to stash away the not-yet-committed changes
937 after each commit, test, and amend the commit if fixes are necessary.
940 RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE
941 -------------------------------
943 Rebasing (or any other form of rewriting) a branch that others have
944 based work on is a bad idea: anyone downstream of it is forced to
945 manually fix their history. This section explains how to do the fix
946 from the downstream's point of view. The real fix, however, would be
947 to avoid rebasing the upstream in the first place.
949 To illustrate, suppose you are in a situation where someone develops a
950 'subsystem' branch, and you are working on a 'topic' that is dependent
951 on this 'subsystem'. You might end up with a history like the
955 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
957 o---o---o---o---o subsystem
962 If 'subsystem' is rebased against 'master', the following happens:
965 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
967 o---o---o---o---o o'--o'--o'--o'--o' subsystem
972 If you now continue development as usual, and eventually merge 'topic'
973 to 'subsystem', the commits from 'subsystem' will remain duplicated forever:
976 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
978 o---o---o---o---o o'--o'--o'--o'--o'--M subsystem
980 *---*---*-..........-*--* topic
983 Such duplicates are generally frowned upon because they clutter up
984 history, making it harder to follow. To clean things up, you need to
985 transplant the commits on 'topic' to the new 'subsystem' tip, i.e.,
986 rebase 'topic'. This becomes a ripple effect: anyone downstream from
987 'topic' is forced to rebase too, and so on!
989 There are two kinds of fixes, discussed in the following subsections:
991 Easy case: The changes are literally the same.::
993 This happens if the 'subsystem' rebase was a simple rebase and
996 Hard case: The changes are not the same.::
998 This happens if the 'subsystem' rebase had conflicts, or used
999 `--interactive` to omit, edit, squash, or fixup commits; or
1000 if the upstream used one of `commit --amend`, `reset`, or
1001 a full history rewriting command like
1002 https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo[`filter-repo`].
1008 Only works if the changes (patch IDs based on the diff contents) on
1009 'subsystem' are literally the same before and after the rebase
1012 In that case, the fix is easy because 'git rebase' knows to skip
1013 changes that are already present in the new upstream. So if you say
1014 (assuming you're on 'topic')
1016 $ git rebase subsystem
1018 you will end up with the fixed history
1020 o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o master
1022 o'--o'--o'--o'--o' subsystem
1031 Things get more complicated if the 'subsystem' changes do not exactly
1032 correspond to the ones before the rebase.
1034 NOTE: While an "easy case recovery" sometimes appears to be successful
1035 even in the hard case, it may have unintended consequences. For
1036 example, a commit that was removed via `git rebase
1037 --interactive` will be **resurrected**!
1039 The idea is to manually tell 'git rebase' "where the old 'subsystem'
1040 ended and your 'topic' began", that is, what the old merge base
1041 between them was. You will have to find a way to name the last commit
1042 of the old 'subsystem', for example:
1044 * With the 'subsystem' reflog: after 'git fetch', the old tip of
1045 'subsystem' is at `subsystem@{1}`. Subsequent fetches will
1046 increase the number. (See linkgit:git-reflog[1].)
1048 * Relative to the tip of 'topic': knowing that your 'topic' has three
1049 commits, the old tip of 'subsystem' must be `topic~3`.
1051 You can then transplant the old `subsystem..topic` to the new tip by
1052 saying (for the reflog case, and assuming you are on 'topic' already):
1054 $ git rebase --onto subsystem subsystem@{1}
1057 The ripple effect of a "hard case" recovery is especially bad:
1058 'everyone' downstream from 'topic' will now have to perform a "hard
1064 The interactive rebase command was originally designed to handle
1065 individual patch series. As such, it makes sense to exclude merge
1066 commits from the todo list, as the developer may have merged the
1067 then-current `master` while working on the branch, only to rebase
1068 all the commits onto `master` eventually (skipping the merge
1071 However, there are legitimate reasons why a developer may want to
1072 recreate merge commits: to keep the branch structure (or "commit
1073 topology") when working on multiple, inter-related branches.
1075 In the following example, the developer works on a topic branch that
1076 refactors the way buttons are defined, and on another topic branch
1077 that uses that refactoring to implement a "Report a bug" button. The
1078 output of `git log --graph --format=%s -5` may look like this:
1081 * Merge branch 'report-a-bug'
1083 | * Add the feedback button
1084 * | Merge branch 'refactor-button'
1087 | * Use the Button class for all buttons
1088 | * Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one
1091 The developer might want to rebase those commits to a newer `master`
1092 while keeping the branch topology, for example when the first topic
1093 branch is expected to be integrated into `master` much earlier than the
1094 second one, say, to resolve merge conflicts with changes to the
1095 DownloadButton class that made it into `master`.
1097 This rebase can be performed using the `--rebase-merges` option.
1098 It will generate a todo list looking like this:
1103 # Branch: refactor-button
1105 pick 123456 Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one
1106 pick 654321 Use the Button class for all buttons
1107 label refactor-button
1109 # Branch: report-a-bug
1110 reset refactor-button # Use the Button class for all buttons
1111 pick abcdef Add the feedback button
1115 merge -C a1b2c3 refactor-button # Merge 'refactor-button'
1116 merge -C 6f5e4d report-a-bug # Merge 'report-a-bug'
1119 In contrast to a regular interactive rebase, there are `label`, `reset`
1120 and `merge` commands in addition to `pick` ones.
1122 The `label` command associates a label with the current HEAD when that
1123 command is executed. These labels are created as worktree-local refs
1124 (`refs/rewritten/<label>`) that will be deleted when the rebase
1125 finishes. That way, rebase operations in multiple worktrees linked to
1126 the same repository do not interfere with one another. If the `label`
1127 command fails, it is rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how
1130 The `reset` command resets the HEAD, index and worktree to the specified
1131 revision. It is similar to an `exec git reset --hard <label>`, but
1132 refuses to overwrite untracked files. If the `reset` command fails, it is
1133 rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how to edit the todo list
1134 (this typically happens when a `reset` command was inserted into the todo
1135 list manually and contains a typo).
1137 The `merge` command will merge the specified revision(s) into whatever
1138 is HEAD at that time. With `-C <original-commit>`, the commit message of
1139 the specified merge commit will be used. When the `-C` is changed to
1140 a lower-case `-c`, the message will be opened in an editor after a
1141 successful merge so that the user can edit the message.
1143 If a `merge` command fails for any reason other than merge conflicts (i.e.
1144 when the merge operation did not even start), it is rescheduled immediately.
1146 At this time, the `merge` command will *always* use the `recursive`
1147 merge strategy for regular merges, and `octopus` for octopus merges,
1148 with no way to choose a different one. To work around
1149 this, an `exec` command can be used to call `git merge` explicitly,
1150 using the fact that the labels are worktree-local refs (the ref
1151 `refs/rewritten/onto` would correspond to the label `onto`, for example).
1153 Note: the first command (`label onto`) labels the revision onto which
1154 the commits are rebased; The name `onto` is just a convention, as a nod
1155 to the `--onto` option.
1157 It is also possible to introduce completely new merge commits from scratch
1158 by adding a command of the form `merge <merge-head>`. This form will
1159 generate a tentative commit message and always open an editor to let the
1160 user edit it. This can be useful e.g. when a topic branch turns out to
1161 address more than a single concern and wants to be split into two or
1162 even more topic branches. Consider this todo list:
1165 pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
1166 pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
1167 pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
1168 pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
1169 pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows
1172 The one commit in this list that is not related to CMake may very well
1173 have been motivated by working on fixing all those bugs introduced by
1174 switching to CMake, but it addresses a different concern. To split this
1175 branch into two topic branches, the todo list could be edited like this:
1180 pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
1184 pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
1185 pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
1186 pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows
1187 pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
1197 The todo list presented by the deprecated `--preserve-merges --interactive`
1198 does not represent the topology of the revision graph (use `--rebase-merges`
1199 instead). Editing commits and rewording their commit messages should work
1200 fine, but attempts to reorder commits tend to produce counterintuitive results.
1201 Use `--rebase-merges` in such scenarios instead.
1203 For example, an attempt to rearrange
1205 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5
1209 1 --- 2 --- 4 --- 3 --- 5
1211 by moving the "pick 4" line will result in the following history:
1220 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite