NAME¶

SYNOPSIS¶

git rebase [-i | --interactive] [<options>] [--exec <cmd>] [--onto <newbase>]
        [<upstream> [<branch>]]
git rebase [-i | --interactive] [<options>] [--exec <cmd>] [--onto <newbase>]
        --root [<branch>]
git rebase --continue | --skip | --abort | --quit | --edit-todo | --show-current-patch

DESCRIPTION¶

If <upstream> is not specified, the upstream configured in branch.<name>.remote and branch.<name>.merge options will be used (see git-config(1) for details) and the --fork-point option is assumed. If you are currently not on any branch or if the current branch does not have a configured upstream, the rebase will abort.

All changes made by commits in the current branch but that are not in <upstream> are saved to a temporary area. This is the same set of commits that would be shown by git log <upstream>..HEAD; or by git log 'fork_point'..HEAD, if --fork-point is active (see the description on --fork-point below); or by git log HEAD, if the --root option is specified.

The current branch is reset to <upstream>, or <newbase> if the --onto option was supplied. This has the exact same effect as git reset --hard <upstream> (or <newbase>). ORIG_HEAD is set to point at the tip of the branch before the reset.

The commits that were previously saved into the temporary area are then reapplied to the current branch, one by one, in order. Note that any commits in HEAD which introduce the same textual changes as a commit in HEAD..<upstream> are omitted (i.e., a patch already accepted upstream with a different commit message or timestamp will be skipped).

It is possible that a merge failure will prevent this process from being completely automatic. You will have to resolve any such merge failure and run git rebase --continue. Another option is to bypass the commit that caused the merge failure with git rebase --skip. To check out the original <branch> and remove the .git/rebase-apply working files, use the command git rebase --abort instead.

Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "topic":

          A---B---C topic
         /
    D---E---F---G master

From this point, the result of either of the following commands:

git rebase master
git rebase master topic

would be:

                  A'--B'--C' topic
                 /
    D---E---F---G master

NOTE: The latter form is just a short-hand of git checkout topic followed by git rebase master. When rebase exits topic will remain the checked-out branch.

If the upstream branch already contains a change you have made (e.g., because you mailed a patch which was applied upstream), then that commit will be skipped. For example, running git rebase master on the following history (in which A' and A introduce the same set of changes, but have different committer information):

          A---B---C topic
         /
    D---E---A'---F master

will result in:

                   B'---C' topic
                  /
    D---E---A'---F master

Here is how you would transplant a topic branch based on one branch to another, to pretend that you forked the topic branch from the latter branch, using rebase --onto.

First let’s assume your topic is based on branch next. For example, a feature developed in topic depends on some functionality which is found in next.

    o---o---o---o---o  master
         \
          o---o---o---o---o  next
                           \
                            o---o---o  topic

We want to make topic forked from branch master; for example, because the functionality on which topic depends was merged into the more stable master branch. We want our tree to look like this:

    o---o---o---o---o  master
        |            \
        |             o'--o'--o'  topic
         \
          o---o---o---o---o  next

We can get this using the following command:

git rebase --onto master next topic

Another example of --onto option is to rebase part of a branch. If we have the following situation:

                            H---I---J topicB
                           /
                  E---F---G  topicA
                 /
    A---B---C---D  master

then the command

git rebase --onto master topicA topicB

would result in:

                 H'--I'--J'  topicB
                /
                | E---F---G  topicA
                |/
    A---B---C---D  master

This is useful when topicB does not depend on topicA.

A range of commits could also be removed with rebase. If we have the following situation:

    E---F---G---H---I---J  topicA

then the command

git rebase --onto topicA~5 topicA~3 topicA

would result in the removal of commits F and G:

    E---H'---I'---J'  topicA

This is useful if F and G were flawed in some way, or should not be part of topicA. Note that the argument to --onto and the <upstream> parameter can be any valid commit-ish.

In case of conflict, git rebase will stop at the first problematic commit and leave conflict markers in the tree. You can use git diff to locate the markers (<<<<<<) and make edits to resolve the conflict. For each file you edit, you need to tell Git that the conflict has been resolved, typically this would be done with

git add <filename>

After resolving the conflict manually and updating the index with the desired resolution, you can continue the rebasing process with

git rebase --continue

Alternatively, you can undo the git rebase with

git rebase --abort

CONFIGURATION¶

rebase.stat

rebase.autoSquash

rebase.autoStash

rebase.missingCommitsCheck

rebase.instructionFormat

rebase.abbreviateCommands

        p deadbee The oneline of the commit
        p fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
        ...

        pick deadbee The oneline of the commit
        pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
        ...

OPTIONS¶

<upstream>

<branch>

--continue

--abort

--quit

--keep-empty

--allow-empty-message

--skip

--edit-todo

--show-current-patch

-m, --merge

-s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>

-X <strategy-option>, --strategy-option=<strategy-option>

-S[<keyid>], --gpg-sign[=<keyid>]

-q, --quiet

-v, --verbose

--stat

-n, --no-stat

--no-verify

--verify

-C<n>

--no-ff, --force-rebase, -f

--fork-point, --no-fork-point

--ignore-whitespace, --whitespace=<option>

--committer-date-is-author-date, --ignore-date

--signoff

-i, --interactive

-r, --rebase-merges[=(rebase-cousins|no-rebase-cousins)]

-p, --preserve-merges

-x <cmd>, --exec <cmd>

git rebase -i --exec "cmd1 && cmd2 && ..."

git rebase -i --exec "cmd1" --exec "cmd2" --exec ...

--root

--autosquash, --no-autosquash

--autostash, --no-autostash

INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS¶

Flags only understood by the am backend:

Flags understood by both merge and interactive backends:

Flags only understood by the interactive backend:

Other incompatible flag pairs:

BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES¶

MERGE STRATEGIES¶

resolve

recursive

octopus

ours

subtree

With the strategies that use 3-way merge (including the default, recursive), if a change is made on both branches, but later reverted on one of the branches, that change will be present in the merged result; some people find this behavior confusing. It occurs because only the heads and the merge base are considered when performing a merge, not the individual commits. The merge algorithm therefore considers the reverted change as no change at all, and substitutes the changed version instead.

NOTES¶

When the git-rebase command is run, it will first execute a "pre-rebase" hook if one exists. You can use this hook to do sanity checks and reject the rebase if it isn’t appropriate. Please see the template pre-rebase hook script for an example.

Upon completion, <branch> will be the current branch.

INTERACTIVE MODE¶

The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow:

where point 2. consists of several instances of

a) regular use

b) independent fixup

Sometimes the thing fixed in b.2. cannot be amended to the not-quite perfect commit it fixes, because that commit is buried deeply in a patch series. That is exactly what interactive rebase is for: use it after plenty of "a"s and "b"s, by rearranging and editing commits, and squashing multiple commits into one.

Start it with the last commit you want to retain as-is:

git rebase -i <after-this-commit>

An editor will be fired up with all the commits in your current branch (ignoring merge commits), which come after the given commit. You can reorder the commits in this list to your heart’s content, and you can remove them. The list looks more or less like this:

pick deadbee The oneline of this commit
pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
...

The oneline descriptions are purely for your pleasure; git rebase will not look at them but at the commit names ("deadbee" and "fa1afe1" in this example), so do not delete or edit the names.

By replacing the command "pick" with the command "edit", you can tell git rebase to stop after applying that commit, so that you can edit the files and/or the commit message, amend the commit, and continue rebasing.

To interrupt the rebase (just like an "edit" command would do, but without cherry-picking any commit first), use the "break" command.

If you just want to edit the commit message for a commit, replace the command "pick" with the command "reword".

To drop a commit, replace the command "pick" with "drop", or just delete the matching line.

If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command "pick" for the second and subsequent commits with "squash" or "fixup". If the commits had different authors, the folded commit will be attributed to the author of the first commit. The suggested commit message for the folded commit is the concatenation of the commit messages of the first commit and of those with the "squash" command, but omits the commit messages of commits with the "fixup" command.

git rebase will stop when "pick" has been replaced with "edit" or when a command fails due to merge errors. When you are done editing and/or resolving conflicts you can continue with git rebase --continue.

For example, if you want to reorder the last 5 commits, such that what was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call git rebase like this:

$ git rebase -i HEAD~5

And move the first patch to the end of the list.

You might want to preserve merges, if you have a history like this:

           X
            \
         A---M---B
        /
---o---O---P---Q

Suppose you want to rebase the side branch starting at "A" to "Q". Make sure that the current HEAD is "B", and call

$ git rebase -i -p --onto Q O

Reordering and editing commits usually creates untested intermediate steps. You may want to check that your history editing did not break anything by running a test, or at least recompiling at intermediate points in history by using the "exec" command (shortcut "x"). You may do so by creating a todo list like this one:

pick deadbee Implement feature XXX
fixup f1a5c00 Fix to feature XXX
exec make
pick c0ffeee The oneline of the next commit
edit deadbab The oneline of the commit after
exec cd subdir; make test
...

The interactive rebase will stop when a command fails (i.e. exits with non-0 status) to give you an opportunity to fix the problem. You can continue with git rebase --continue.

The "exec" command launches the command in a shell (the one specified in $SHELL, or the default shell if $SHELL is not set), so you can use shell features (like "cd", ">", ";" ...). The command is run from the root of the working tree.

$ git rebase -i --exec "make test"

This command lets you check that intermediate commits are compilable. The todo list becomes like that:

pick 5928aea one
exec make test
pick 04d0fda two
exec make test
pick ba46169 three
exec make test
pick f4593f9 four
exec make test

SPLITTING COMMITS¶

If you are not absolutely sure that the intermediate revisions are consistent (they compile, pass the testsuite, etc.) you should use git stash to stash away the not-yet-committed changes after each commit, test, and amend the commit if fixes are necessary.

RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE¶

To illustrate, suppose you are in a situation where someone develops a subsystem branch, and you are working on a topic that is dependent on this subsystem. You might end up with a history like the following:

    o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o  master
         \
          o---o---o---o---o  subsystem
                           \
                            *---*---*  topic

If subsystem is rebased against master, the following happens:

    o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o  master
         \                       \
          o---o---o---o---o       o'--o'--o'--o'--o'  subsystem
                           \
                            *---*---*  topic

If you now continue development as usual, and eventually merge topic to subsystem, the commits from subsystem will remain duplicated forever:

    o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o  master
         \                       \
          o---o---o---o---o       o'--o'--o'--o'--o'--M  subsystem
                           \                         /
                            *---*---*-..........-*--*  topic

Such duplicates are generally frowned upon because they clutter up history, making it harder to follow. To clean things up, you need to transplant the commits on topic to the new subsystem tip, i.e., rebase topic. This becomes a ripple effect: anyone downstream from topic is forced to rebase too, and so on!

There are two kinds of fixes, discussed in the following subsections:

Easy case: The changes are literally the same.

Hard case: The changes are not the same.

    $ git rebase subsystem

    o---o---o---o---o---o---o---o  master
                                 \
                                  o'--o'--o'--o'--o'  subsystem
                                                   \
                                                    *---*---*  topic

    $ git rebase --onto subsystem subsystem@{1}

REBASING MERGES¶

However, there are legitimate reasons why a developer may want to recreate merge commits: to keep the branch structure (or "commit topology") when working on multiple, inter-related branches.

In the following example, the developer works on a topic branch that refactors the way buttons are defined, and on another topic branch that uses that refactoring to implement a "Report a bug" button. The output of git log --graph --format=%s -5 may look like this:

*   Merge branch 'report-a-bug'
|\
| * Add the feedback button
* | Merge branch 'refactor-button'
|\ \
| |/
| * Use the Button class for all buttons
| * Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one

The developer might want to rebase those commits to a newer master while keeping the branch topology, for example when the first topic branch is expected to be integrated into master much earlier than the second one, say, to resolve merge conflicts with changes to the DownloadButton class that made it into master.

This rebase can be performed using the --rebase-merges option. It will generate a todo list looking like this:

label onto
# Branch: refactor-button
reset onto
pick 123456 Extract a generic Button class from the DownloadButton one
pick 654321 Use the Button class for all buttons
label refactor-button
# Branch: report-a-bug
reset refactor-button # Use the Button class for all buttons
pick abcdef Add the feedback button
label report-a-bug
reset onto
merge -C a1b2c3 refactor-button # Merge 'refactor-button'
merge -C 6f5e4d report-a-bug # Merge 'report-a-bug'

In contrast to a regular interactive rebase, there are label, reset and merge commands in addition to pick ones.

The label command associates a label with the current HEAD when that command is executed. These labels are created as worktree-local refs (refs/rewritten/<label>) that will be deleted when the rebase finishes. That way, rebase operations in multiple worktrees linked to the same repository do not interfere with one another. If the label command fails, it is rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how to proceed.

The reset command resets the HEAD, index and worktree to the specified revision. It is similar to an exec git reset --hard <label>, but refuses to overwrite untracked files. If the reset command fails, it is rescheduled immediately, with a helpful message how to edit the todo list (this typically happens when a reset command was inserted into the todo list manually and contains a typo).

The merge command will merge the specified revision(s) into whatever is HEAD at that time. With -C <original-commit>, the commit message of the specified merge commit will be used. When the -C is changed to a lower-case -c, the message will be opened in an editor after a successful merge so that the user can edit the message.

If a merge command fails for any reason other than merge conflicts (i.e. when the merge operation did not even start), it is rescheduled immediately.

At this time, the merge command will always use the recursive merge strategy for regular merges, and octopus for octopus merges, strategy, with no way to choose a different one. To work around this, an exec command can be used to call git merge explicitly, using the fact that the labels are worktree-local refs (the ref refs/rewritten/onto would correspond to the label onto, for example).

Note: the first command (label onto) labels the revision onto which the commits are rebased; The name onto is just a convention, as a nod to the --onto option.

It is also possible to introduce completely new merge commits from scratch by adding a command of the form merge <merge-head>. This form will generate a tentative commit message and always open an editor to let the user edit it. This can be useful e.g. when a topic branch turns out to address more than a single concern and wants to be split into two or even more topic branches. Consider this todo list:

pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows

The one commit in this list that is not related to CMake may very well have been motivated by working on fixing all those bugs introduced by switching to CMake, but it addresses a different concern. To split this branch into two topic branches, the todo list could be edited like this:

label onto
pick afbecd http: add support for TLS v1.3
label tlsv1.3
reset onto
pick 192837 Switch from GNU Makefiles to CMake
pick 918273 Fix detection of OpenSSL in CMake
pick fdbaec Fix detection of cURL in CMake on Windows
pick 5a6c7e Document the switch to CMake
label cmake
reset onto
merge tlsv1.3
merge cmake

BUGS¶

For example, an attempt to rearrange

1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5

to

1 --- 2 --- 4 --- 3 --- 5

by moving the "pick 4" line will result in the following history:

        3
       /
1 --- 2 --- 4 --- 5

GIT¶

NOTES¶

1.

revert-a-faulty-merge How-To