Provided by:
git-core_1.5.6.3-1.1ubuntu2_i386 
NAME
git-rebase - Forward-port local commits to the updated upstream head
SYNOPSIS
git-rebase [-i | --interactive] [-v | --verbose] [-m | --merge]
[-s <strategy> | --strategy=<strategy>]
[-C<n>] [ --whitespace=<option>] [-p | --preserve-merges]
[--onto <newbase>] <upstream> [<branch>]
git-rebase --continue | --skip | --abort
DESCRIPTION
If <branch> is specified, git-rebase will perform an automatic git
checkout <branch> before doing anything else. Otherwise it remains on
the current branch.
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.
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>).
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 restore
the original <branch> and remove the .dotest 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
The latter form is just a short-hand of git checkout topic followed by
git rebase master.
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
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 would want to make topic forked from branch master, for example
because the functionality topic branch depend on got merged into more
stable master branch, 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
OPTIONS
<newbase>
Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the --onto
option is not specified, the starting point is <upstream>. May be
any valid commit, and not just an existing branch name.
<upstream>
Upstream branch to compare against. May be any valid commit, not
just an existing branch name.
<branch>
Working branch; defaults to HEAD.
--continue
Restart the rebasing process after having resolved a merge
conflict.
--abort
Restore the original branch and abort the rebase operation.
--skip
Restart the rebasing process by skipping the current patch.
-m, --merge
Use merging strategies to rebase. When the recursive (default)
merge strategy is used, this allows rebase to be aware of renames
on the upstream side.
-s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>
Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once to
specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is no -s
option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead
(git-merge-recursive when merging a single head, git-merge-octopus
otherwise). This implies --merge.
-v, --verbose
Display a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase.
-C<n>
Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before and
after each change. When fewer lines of surrounding context exist
they all must match. By default no context is ever ignored.
--whitespace=<nowarn|warn|error|error-all|strip>
This flag is passed to the git-apply program (see git-apply(1))
that applies the patch.
-i, --interactive
Make a list of the commits which are about to be rebased. Let the
user edit that list before rebasing. This mode can also be used to
split commits (see SPLITTING COMMITS below).
-p, --preserve-merges
Instead of ignoring merges, try to recreate them. This option only
works in interactive mode.
MERGE STRATEGIES
resolve
This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch and
another branch you pulled from) using 3-way merge algorithm. It
tries to carefully detect criss-cross merge ambiguities and is
considered generally safe and fast.
recursive
This can only resolve two heads using 3-way merge algorithm. When
there are more than one common ancestors that can be used for 3-way
merge, it creates a merged tree of the common ancestors and uses
that as the reference tree for the 3-way merge. This has been
reported to result in fewer merge conflicts without causing
mis-merges by tests done on actual merge commits taken from Linux
2.6 kernel development history. Additionally this can detect and
handle merges involving renames. This is the default merge strategy
when pulling or merging one branch.
octopus
This resolves more than two-head case, but refuses to do complex
merge that needs manual resolution. It is primarily meant to be
used for bundling topic branch heads together. This is the default
merge strategy when pulling or merging more than one branches.
ours
This resolves any number of heads, but the result of the merge is
always the current branch head. It is meant to be used to supersede
old development history of side branches.
subtree
This is a modified recursive strategy. When merging trees A and B,
if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to match
the tree structure of A, instead of reading the trees at the same
level. This adjustment is also done to the common ancestor tree.
NOTES
When you rebase a branch, you are changing its history in a way that
will cause problems for anyone who already has a copy of the branch in
their repository and tries to pull updates from you. You should
understand the implications of using git rebase on a repository that
you share.
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
Rebasing interactively means that you have a chance to edit the commits
which are rebased. You can reorder the commits, and you can remove them
(weeding out bad or otherwise unwanted patches).
The interactive mode is meant for this type of workflow:
1. have a wonderful idea
2. hack on the code
3. prepare a series for submission
4. submit
where point 2. consists of several instances of
1. regular use
1. finish something worthy of a commit
2. commit
2. independent fixup
1. realize that something does not work
2. fix that
3. commit it
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.
If you want to fold two or more commits into one, replace the command
"pick" with "squash" for the second and subsequent commit. If the
commits had different authors, it will attribute the squashed commit to
the author of the first commit.
In both cases, or when a "pick" does not succeed (because of merge
errors), the loop will stop to let you fix things, and you can continue
the loop 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
SPLITTING COMMITS
In interactive mode, you can mark commits with the action "edit".
However, this does not necessarily mean that git rebase expects the
result of this edit to be exactly one commit. Indeed, you can undo the
commit, or you can add other commits. This can be used to split a
commit into two:
· Start an interactive rebase with git rebase -i <commit>^, where
<commit> is the commit you want to split. In fact, any commit range
will do, as long as it contains that commit.
· Mark the commit you want to split with the action "edit".
· When it comes to editing that commit, execute git reset HEAD^. The
effect is that the HEAD is rewound by one, and the index follows
suit. However, the working tree stays the same.
· Now add the changes to the index that you want to have in the first
commit. You can use git-add(1) (possibly interactively) and/or git-
gui(1) to do that.
· Commit the now-current index with whatever commit message is
appropriate now.
· Repeat the last two steps until your working tree is clean.
· Continue the rebase with git rebase --continue.
If you are not absolutely sure that the intermediate revisions are
consistent (they compile, pass the testsuite, etc.) you should use git-
stash(1) to stash away the not-yet-committed changes after each commit,
test, and amend the commit if fixes are necessary.
AUTHORS
Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> and Johannes E. Schindelin
<johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite