Merging & Rebasing
Last updated
Last updated
So do you rebase, then merge? It looks like rebase just makes changes?
Merge two branches
The branch name used should be the one you are not currently in
git merge <BRANCH_NAME>
Rebase one branch onto another
If you are currently on a branch, you can rebase to move all of the commits in that branch to a new attachment point on a different/new branch
In the example below, main* was on C3 and the command git rebase C2 was used to rebase/move C3 to after C2
This changes the "base" so that it looks like the features were developed sequentially rather than in parallel
This makes the git diagram neater
git rebase <BRANCH_NAME/REF>
git rebase <REF1> <REF2>
Completely replace Main with a Branch
git checkout main
git pull
git checkout <BRANCH>
git merge -s ours main
git checkout main
git merge <BRANCH>
Reverses changes by moving a branch reference backwards in time to an older commit
In this sense you can think of it as "rewriting history"
git reset will move a branch backwards as if the commit had never been made in the first place
--hard deletes commits between current location and the reference used so they are no longer in the history
git reset <REF>
git reset HEAD^
git reset --hard HEAD^
While resetting works great for local branches on your own machine, its method of "rewriting history" doesn't work for remote branches that others are using.
In order to reverse changes and share those reversed changes with others, we need to use git revert
git revert <REF>
git revert HEAD
Copy a series of commits below your current location (HEAD)
Think of cherry-pick like a rebase where the commits added before the current location are specifically selected
Sure, you can also do some specific selection with git rebase -i but that is only commits in the selected path, cherry-pick commits could come from anywhere
git cherry-pick <COMMIT_1> <COMMIT_2> <...>
Git Interactive Rebase
Using the rebase command with the -i option
If you include this option, git will open up an editor to show you which commits are about to be copied below the target of the rebase. It also shows their commit hashes and messages, which is great for getting a bearing on what's what.
It seems to open in vim
git rebase -i <REF>
git rebase -i HEAD~4
Add a tag
git tag <TAG_NAME> <REF>
git tag 1.0.0 main
Checkout a tag
git checkout <TAG_NAME>
Push tags to remote
git push <REMOTE_NAME> --tags
Describe where you currently are relative to the closest "anchor" (aka tag)
If you don't specify a <REF> the git will just use where you're checked out right now (head)
Where <TAG> is the closest ancestor tag in history, <NUM_COMMITS> is how many commits away that tag is, and <CURRENT_HASH> is the hash of the commit being described.
git describe <REF>
OUTPUTS:
<TAG>_<NUM_COMMITS>_g<CURRENT_HASH>
