Tag: GIT Rebase

Being new to git. You will inadvertently struggle.

1. Having opened a pull request (PR), leaving the PR hanging for a while, picking it up Y time later, with several changes have happened in the upstream branch. You will often find yourself in need of using git rebase upstream/master ((https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rebase)).
2. After having rebased recent commits upon the upstream/master branch. You might want to squash your commits together, to create a cleaner pull request, and to avoid (un)intentionally blotting the git-history with miscellaneous commits, imagine:

   $ git log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset %s'
   * 77464f9 Update 'filename1.txt'
   * 2a7894b Update 'File 2.txt'
   * 27a44c6 Add 'File 2.txt'
   * 4bc179b Add 'filename1.txt'
   * 8757b20 Initial commit

   Can be reduced

   pick  = use commit
   reword  = use commit, but edit the commit message
   edit  = use commit, but stop for amending
   squash  = use commit, but meld into previous commit
   fixup  = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
   break = stop here (continue rebase later with 'git rebase --continue')
   drop  = remove commit

   $ git rebase --interactive 8757b20
   reword 4bc179b Add 'filename1.txt'
   fixup 27a44c6 Add 'File 2.txt'
   fixup 2a7894b Update 'File 2.txt'
   fixup 77464f9 Update 'filename1.txt'
   

   $ git log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset %s'
   * 255c889 Add 'filename1.txt', and 'File 2.txt'
   * 8757b20 Initial commit
   

3. If in need of deciding which commit to squash together, and were to edit the commit message. Using git rebase --interactive (commit-hash, remote-name/branch-name, or branch-name) is the lifeline.

Remember, the commit hash will change when using git rebase action. Force pushing to the remote branch to replace its contents is necessary.
git push remote-name local-branch-name:remote-branch-name --force
(e.g. git push origin master-squashed-commits:master --force).

But this approach is the recommended way in regards to using git pull-requests. Any existing pull-requests against a branch you have on your fork of the upstream repository. Will automatically use the latest available information in your fork’s branch.