Documentation / git-rebase.txton commit GIT 1.5.3.5 (3f2a7ae)
   1git-rebase(1)
   2=============
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-rebase - Forward-port local commits to the updated upstream head
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10[verse]
  11'git-rebase' [-i | --interactive] [-v | --verbose] [-m | --merge] [-C<n>]
  12        [-p | --preserve-merges] [--onto <newbase>] <upstream> [<branch>]
  13'git-rebase' --continue | --skip | --abort
  14
  15DESCRIPTION
  16-----------
  17If <branch> is specified, git-rebase will perform an automatic
  18`git checkout <branch>` before doing anything else.  Otherwise
  19it remains on the current branch.
  20
  21All changes made by commits in the current branch but that are not
  22in <upstream> are saved to a temporary area.  This is the same set
  23of commits that would be shown by `git log <upstream>..HEAD`.
  24
  25The current branch is reset to <upstream>, or <newbase> if the
  26--onto option was supplied.  This has the exact same effect as
  27`git reset --hard <upstream>` (or <newbase>).
  28
  29The commits that were previously saved into the temporary area are
  30then reapplied to the current branch, one by one, in order.
  31
  32It is possible that a merge failure will prevent this process from being
  33completely automatic.  You will have to resolve any such merge failure
  34and run `git rebase --continue`.  Another option is to bypass the commit
  35that caused the merge failure with `git rebase --skip`.  To restore the
  36original <branch> and remove the .dotest working files, use the command
  37`git rebase --abort` instead.
  38
  39Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "topic":
  40
  41------------
  42          A---B---C topic
  43         /
  44    D---E---F---G master
  45------------
  46
  47From this point, the result of either of the following commands:
  48
  49
  50    git-rebase master
  51    git-rebase master topic
  52
  53would be:
  54
  55------------
  56                  A'--B'--C' topic
  57                 /
  58    D---E---F---G master
  59------------
  60
  61The latter form is just a short-hand of `git checkout topic`
  62followed by `git rebase master`.
  63
  64Here is how you would transplant a topic branch based on one
  65branch to another, to pretend that you forked the topic branch
  66from the latter branch, using `rebase --onto`.
  67
  68First let's assume your 'topic' is based on branch 'next'.
  69For example feature developed in 'topic' depends on some
  70functionality which is found in 'next'.
  71
  72------------
  73    o---o---o---o---o  master
  74         \
  75          o---o---o---o---o  next
  76                           \
  77                            o---o---o  topic
  78------------
  79
  80We would want to make 'topic' forked from branch 'master',
  81for example because the functionality 'topic' branch depend on
  82got merged into more stable 'master' branch, like this:
  83
  84------------
  85    o---o---o---o---o  master
  86        |            \
  87        |             o'--o'--o'  topic
  88         \
  89          o---o---o---o---o  next
  90------------
  91
  92We can get this using the following command:
  93
  94    git-rebase --onto master next topic
  95
  96
  97Another example of --onto option is to rebase part of a
  98branch.  If we have the following situation:
  99
 100------------
 101                            H---I---J topicB
 102                           /
 103                  E---F---G  topicA
 104                 /
 105    A---B---C---D  master
 106------------
 107
 108then the command
 109
 110    git-rebase --onto master topicA topicB
 111
 112would result in:
 113
 114------------
 115                 H'--I'--J'  topicB
 116                /
 117                | E---F---G  topicA
 118                |/
 119    A---B---C---D  master
 120------------
 121
 122This is useful when topicB does not depend on topicA.
 123
 124A range of commits could also be removed with rebase.  If we have
 125the following situation:
 126
 127------------
 128    E---F---G---H---I---J  topicA
 129------------
 130
 131then the command
 132
 133    git-rebase --onto topicA~5 topicA~3 topicA
 134
 135would result in the removal of commits F and G:
 136
 137------------
 138    E---H'---I'---J'  topicA
 139------------
 140
 141This is useful if F and G were flawed in some way, or should not be
 142part of topicA.  Note that the argument to --onto and the <upstream>
 143parameter can be any valid commit-ish.
 144
 145In case of conflict, git-rebase will stop at the first problematic commit
 146and leave conflict markers in the tree.  You can use git diff to locate
 147the markers (<<<<<<) and make edits to resolve the conflict.  For each
 148file you edit, you need to tell git that the conflict has been resolved,
 149typically this would be done with
 150
 151
 152    git add <filename>
 153
 154
 155After resolving the conflict manually and updating the index with the
 156desired resolution, you can continue the rebasing process with
 157
 158
 159    git rebase --continue
 160
 161
 162Alternatively, you can undo the git-rebase with
 163
 164
 165    git rebase --abort
 166
 167OPTIONS
 168-------
 169<newbase>::
 170        Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the
 171        --onto option is not specified, the starting point is
 172        <upstream>.  May be any valid commit, and not just an
 173        existing branch name.
 174
 175<upstream>::
 176        Upstream branch to compare against.  May be any valid commit,
 177        not just an existing branch name.
 178
 179<branch>::
 180        Working branch; defaults to HEAD.
 181
 182--continue::
 183        Restart the rebasing process after having resolved a merge conflict.
 184
 185--abort::
 186        Restore the original branch and abort the rebase operation.
 187
 188--skip::
 189        Restart the rebasing process by skipping the current patch.
 190
 191-m, \--merge::
 192        Use merging strategies to rebase.  When the recursive (default) merge
 193        strategy is used, this allows rebase to be aware of renames on the
 194        upstream side.
 195
 196-s <strategy>, \--strategy=<strategy>::
 197        Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than
 198        once to specify them in the order they should be tried.
 199        If there is no `-s` option, a built-in list of strategies
 200        is used instead (`git-merge-recursive` when merging a single
 201        head, `git-merge-octopus` otherwise).  This implies --merge.
 202
 203-v, \--verbose::
 204        Display a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase.
 205
 206-C<n>::
 207        Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before
 208        and after each change.  When fewer lines of surrounding
 209        context exist they all must match.  By default no context is
 210        ever ignored.
 211
 212-i, \--interactive::
 213        Make a list of the commits which are about to be rebased.  Let the
 214        user edit that list before rebasing.  This mode can also be used to
 215        split commits (see SPLITTING COMMITS below).
 216
 217-p, \--preserve-merges::
 218        Instead of ignoring merges, try to recreate them.  This option
 219        only works in interactive mode.
 220
 221include::merge-strategies.txt[]
 222
 223NOTES
 224-----
 225When you rebase a branch, you are changing its history in a way that
 226will cause problems for anyone who already has a copy of the branch
 227in their repository and tries to pull updates from you.  You should
 228understand the implications of using 'git rebase' on a repository that
 229you share.
 230
 231When the git rebase command is run, it will first execute a "pre-rebase"
 232hook if one exists.  You can use this hook to do sanity checks and
 233reject the rebase if it isn't appropriate.  Please see the template
 234pre-rebase hook script for an example.
 235
 236You must be in the top directory of your project to start (or continue)
 237a rebase.  Upon completion, <branch> will be the current branch.
 238
 239INTERACTIVE MODE
 240----------------
 241
 242Rebasing interactively means that you have a chance to edit the commits
 243which are rebased.  You can reorder the commits, and you can
 244remove them (weeding out bad or otherwise unwanted patches).
 245
 246The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow:
 247
 2481. have a wonderful idea
 2492. hack on the code
 2503. prepare a series for submission
 2514. submit
 252
 253where point 2. consists of several instances of
 254
 255a. regular use
 256 1. finish something worthy of a commit
 257 2. commit
 258b. independent fixup
 259 1. realize that something does not work
 260 2. fix that
 261 3. commit it
 262
 263Sometimes the thing fixed in b.2. cannot be amended to the not-quite
 264perfect commit it fixes, because that commit is buried deeply in a
 265patch series.  That is exactly what interactive rebase is for: use it
 266after plenty of "a"s and "b"s, by rearranging and editing
 267commits, and squashing multiple commits into one.
 268
 269Start it with the last commit you want to retain as-is:
 270
 271        git rebase -i <after-this-commit>
 272
 273An editor will be fired up with all the commits in your current branch
 274(ignoring merge commits), which come after the given commit.  You can
 275reorder the commits in this list to your heart's content, and you can
 276remove them.  The list looks more or less like this:
 277
 278-------------------------------------------
 279pick deadbee The oneline of this commit
 280pick fa1afe1 The oneline of the next commit
 281...
 282-------------------------------------------
 283
 284The oneline descriptions are purely for your pleasure; `git-rebase` will
 285not look at them but at the commit names ("deadbee" and "fa1afe1" in this
 286example), so do not delete or edit the names.
 287
 288By replacing the command "pick" with the command "edit", you can tell
 289`git-rebase` to stop after applying that commit, so that you can edit
 290the files and/or the commit message, amend the commit, and continue
 291rebasing.
 292
 293If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command
 294"pick" with "squash" for the second and subsequent commit.  If the
 295commits had different authors, it will attribute the squashed commit to
 296the author of the first commit.
 297
 298In both cases, or when a "pick" does not succeed (because of merge
 299errors), the loop will stop to let you fix things, and you can continue
 300the loop with `git rebase --continue`.
 301
 302For example, if you want to reorder the last 5 commits, such that what
 303was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call
 304`git-rebase` like this:
 305
 306----------------------
 307$ git rebase -i HEAD~5
 308----------------------
 309
 310And move the first patch to the end of the list.
 311
 312You might want to preserve merges, if you have a history like this:
 313
 314------------------
 315           X
 316            \
 317         A---M---B
 318        /
 319---o---O---P---Q
 320------------------
 321
 322Suppose you want to rebase the side branch starting at "A" to "Q". Make
 323sure that the current HEAD is "B", and call
 324
 325-----------------------------
 326$ git rebase -i -p --onto Q O
 327-----------------------------
 328
 329
 330SPLITTING COMMITS
 331-----------------
 332
 333In interactive mode, you can mark commits with the action "edit".  However,
 334this does not necessarily mean that 'git rebase' expects the result of this
 335edit to be exactly one commit.  Indeed, you can undo the commit, or you can
 336add other commits.  This can be used to split a commit into two:
 337
 338- Start an interactive rebase with 'git rebase -i <commit>^', where
 339  <commit> is the commit you want to split.  In fact, any commit range
 340  will do, as long as it contains that commit.
 341
 342- Mark the commit you want to split with the action "edit".
 343
 344- When it comes to editing that commit, execute 'git reset HEAD^'.  The
 345  effect is that the HEAD is rewound by one, and the index follows suit.
 346  However, the working tree stays the same.
 347
 348- Now add the changes to the index that you want to have in the first
 349  commit.  You can use gitlink:git-add[1] (possibly interactively) and/or
 350  gitlink:git-gui[1] to do that.
 351
 352- Commit the now-current index with whatever commit message is appropriate
 353  now.
 354
 355- Repeat the last two steps until your working tree is clean.
 356
 357- Continue the rebase with 'git rebase --continue'.
 358
 359If you are not absolutely sure that the intermediate revisions are
 360consistent (they compile, pass the testsuite, etc.) you should use
 361gitlink:git-stash[1] to stash away the not-yet-committed changes
 362after each commit, test, and amend the commit if fixes are necessary.
 363
 364
 365Authors
 366------
 367Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> and
 368Johannes E. Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
 369
 370Documentation
 371--------------
 372Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 373
 374GIT
 375---
 376Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite