6 git-rebase - Forward-port local commits to the updated upstream head
11 'git-rebase' [-i | --interactive] [-v | --verbose] [-m | --merge]
12 [-s <strategy> | --strategy=<strategy>]
13 [-C<n>] [ --whitespace=<option>] [-p | --preserve-merges]
14 [-f | --first-parent] [-t | --preserve-tags]
15 [--onto <newbase>] <upstream> [<branch>]
16 'git-rebase' --continue | --skip | --abort
20 If <branch> is specified, git-rebase will perform an automatic
21 `git checkout <branch>` before doing anything else. Otherwise
22 it remains on the current branch.
24 All changes made by commits in the current branch but that are not
25 in <upstream> are saved to a temporary area. This is the same set
26 of commits that would be shown by `git log <upstream>..HEAD`.
28 The current branch is reset to <upstream>, or <newbase> if the
29 --onto option was supplied. This has the exact same effect as
30 `git reset --hard <upstream>` (or <newbase>).
32 The commits that were previously saved into the temporary area are
33 then reapplied to the current branch, one by one, in order. Note that
34 any commits in HEAD which introduce the same textual changes as a commit
35 in HEAD..<upstream> are omitted (i.e., a patch already accepted upstream
36 with a different commit message or timestamp will be skipped).
38 It is possible that a merge failure will prevent this process from being
39 completely automatic. You will have to resolve any such merge failure
40 and run `git rebase --continue`. Another option is to bypass the commit
41 that caused the merge failure with `git rebase --skip`. To restore the
42 original <branch> and remove the .dotest working files, use the command
43 `git rebase --abort` instead.
45 Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "topic":
53 From this point, the result of either of the following commands:
57 git-rebase master topic
67 The latter form is just a short-hand of `git checkout topic`
68 followed by `git rebase master`.
70 If the upstream branch already contains a change you have made (e.g.,
71 because you mailed a patch which was applied upstream), then that commit
72 will be skipped. For example, running `git-rebase master` on the
73 following history (in which A' and A introduce the same set of changes,
74 but have different committer information):
90 Here is how you would transplant a topic branch based on one
91 branch to another, to pretend that you forked the topic branch
92 from the latter branch, using `rebase --onto`.
94 First let's assume your 'topic' is based on branch 'next'.
95 For example feature developed in 'topic' depends on some
96 functionality which is found in 'next'.
99 o---o---o---o---o master
101 o---o---o---o---o next
106 We would want to make 'topic' forked from branch 'master',
107 for example because the functionality 'topic' branch depend on
108 got merged into more stable 'master' branch, like this:
111 o---o---o---o---o master
115 o---o---o---o---o next
118 We can get this using the following command:
120 git-rebase --onto master next topic
123 Another example of --onto option is to rebase part of a
124 branch. If we have the following situation:
136 git-rebase --onto master topicA topicB
148 This is useful when topicB does not depend on topicA.
150 A range of commits could also be removed with rebase. If we have
151 the following situation:
154 E---F---G---H---I---J topicA
159 git-rebase --onto topicA~5 topicA~3 topicA
161 would result in the removal of commits F and G:
164 E---H'---I'---J' topicA
167 This is useful if F and G were flawed in some way, or should not be
168 part of topicA. Note that the argument to --onto and the <upstream>
169 parameter can be any valid commit-ish.
171 In case of conflict, git-rebase will stop at the first problematic commit
172 and leave conflict markers in the tree. You can use git diff to locate
173 the markers (<<<<<<) and make edits to resolve the conflict. For each
174 file you edit, you need to tell git that the conflict has been resolved,
175 typically this would be done with
181 After resolving the conflict manually and updating the index with the
182 desired resolution, you can continue the rebasing process with
185 git rebase --continue
188 Alternatively, you can undo the git-rebase with
196 Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the
197 --onto option is not specified, the starting point is
198 <upstream>. May be any valid commit, and not just an
199 existing branch name.
202 Upstream branch to compare against. May be any valid commit,
203 not just an existing branch name.
206 Working branch; defaults to HEAD.
209 Restart the rebasing process after having resolved a merge conflict.
212 Restore the original branch and abort the rebase operation.
215 Restart the rebasing process by skipping the current patch.
218 Use merging strategies to rebase. When the recursive (default) merge
219 strategy is used, this allows rebase to be aware of renames on the
222 -s <strategy>, \--strategy=<strategy>::
223 Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than
224 once to specify them in the order they should be tried.
225 If there is no `-s` option, a built-in list of strategies
226 is used instead (`git-merge-recursive` when merging a single
227 head, `git-merge-octopus` otherwise). This implies --merge.
230 Display a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase.
233 Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before
234 and after each change. When fewer lines of surrounding
235 context exist they all must match. By default no context is
238 --whitespace=<nowarn|warn|error|error-all|strip>::
239 This flag is passed to the `git-apply` program
240 (see linkgit:git-apply[1]) that applies the patch.
243 Make a list of the commits which are about to be rebased. Let the
244 user edit that list before rebasing. This mode can also be used to
245 split commits (see SPLITTING COMMITS below).
247 -p, \--preserve-merges::
248 Instead of ignoring merges, try to recreate them. This option
249 only works in interactive mode.
251 -f, \--first-parent::
252 This option implies the option --preserve-merges, but instead of
253 showing all commits from the merged branches show only the
254 commits and merges following the first parent of each commit.
256 -t, \--preserve-tags::
257 If one of the commits has a tag, reset it to the new commit object.
259 include::merge-strategies.txt[]
263 When you rebase a branch, you are changing its history in a way that
264 will cause problems for anyone who already has a copy of the branch
265 in their repository and tries to pull updates from you. You should
266 understand the implications of using 'git rebase' on a repository that
269 When the git rebase command is run, it will first execute a "pre-rebase"
270 hook if one exists. You can use this hook to do sanity checks and
271 reject the rebase if it isn't appropriate. Please see the template
272 pre-rebase hook script for an example.
274 Upon completion, <branch> will be the current branch.
279 Rebasing interactively means that you have a chance to edit the commits
280 which are rebased. You can reorder the commits, and you can
281 remove them (weeding out bad or otherwise unwanted patches).
283 The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow:
285 1. have a wonderful idea
287 3. prepare a series for submission
290 where point 2. consists of several instances of
293 1. finish something worthy of a commit
296 1. realize that something does not work
300 Sometimes the thing fixed in b.2. cannot be amended to the not-quite
301 perfect commit it fixes, because that commit is buried deeply in a
302 patch series. That is exactly what interactive rebase is for: use it
303 after plenty of "a"s and "b"s, by rearranging and editing
304 commits, and squashing multiple commits into one.
306 Start it with the last commit you want to retain as-is:
308 git rebase -i <after-this-commit>
310 An editor will be fired up with all the commits in your current branch
311 (ignoring merge commits), which come after the given commit. You can
312 reorder the commits in this list to your heart's content, and you can
313 remove them. The list looks more or less like this:
315 -------------------------------------------
316 pick deadbee The oneline of this commit
317 pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
319 -------------------------------------------
321 The oneline descriptions are purely for your pleasure; `git-rebase` will
322 not look at them but at the commit names ("deadbee" and "fa1afe1" in this
323 example), so do not delete or edit the names.
325 By replacing the command "pick" with the command "edit", you can tell
326 `git-rebase` to stop after applying that commit, so that you can edit
327 the files and/or the commit message, amend the commit, and continue
330 If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command
331 "pick" with "squash" for the second and subsequent commit. If the
332 commits had different authors, it will attribute the squashed commit to
333 the author of the first commit.
335 In both cases, or when a "pick" does not succeed (because of merge
336 errors), the loop will stop to let you fix things, and you can continue
337 the loop with `git rebase --continue`.
339 For example, if you want to reorder the last 5 commits, such that what
340 was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call
341 `git-rebase` like this:
343 ----------------------
344 $ git rebase -i HEAD~5
345 ----------------------
347 And move the first patch to the end of the list.
349 You might want to preserve merges, if you have a history like this:
359 Suppose you want to rebase the side branch starting at "A" to "Q". Make
360 sure that the current HEAD is "B", and call
362 -----------------------------
363 $ git rebase -i -p --onto Q O
364 -----------------------------
370 In interactive mode, you can mark commits with the action "edit". However,
371 this does not necessarily mean that 'git rebase' expects the result of this
372 edit to be exactly one commit. Indeed, you can undo the commit, or you can
373 add other commits. This can be used to split a commit into two:
375 - Start an interactive rebase with 'git rebase -i <commit>^', where
376 <commit> is the commit you want to split. In fact, any commit range
377 will do, as long as it contains that commit.
379 - Mark the commit you want to split with the action "edit".
381 - When it comes to editing that commit, execute 'git reset HEAD^'. The
382 effect is that the HEAD is rewound by one, and the index follows suit.
383 However, the working tree stays the same.
385 - Now add the changes to the index that you want to have in the first
386 commit. You can use linkgit:git-add[1] (possibly interactively) and/or
387 linkgit:git-gui[1] to do that.
389 - Commit the now-current index with whatever commit message is appropriate
392 - Repeat the last two steps until your working tree is clean.
394 - Continue the rebase with 'git rebase --continue'.
396 If you are not absolutely sure that the intermediate revisions are
397 consistent (they compile, pass the testsuite, etc.) you should use
398 linkgit:git-stash[1] to stash away the not-yet-committed changes
399 after each commit, test, and amend the commit if fixes are necessary.
404 Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> and
405 Johannes E. Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
409 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
413 Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite