Git - git-rebase Documentation
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Summary (TL;DR)
The article documents the git rebase command, detailing all its options. Key points include: --onto sets a new base for commits; --keep-base uses the merge base of upstream and branch; --apply uses git-am internally; --empty controls handling of commits that become empty; --reapply-cherry-picks reapplies clean cherry-picks; --merge uses merge strategies (default); interactive mode (-i) allows editing the commit list; --rebase-merges preserves merge commits; --exec runs commands after each commit; --root rebases all commits reachable from branch; --autosquash auto-squashes specially formatted commits; --autostash stashes dirty worktree automatically.
- --onto <newbase>
-
Starting point at which to create the new commits. If the
--ontooption is not specified, the starting point is <upstream>. May be any valid commit, and not just an existing branch name.As a special case, you may use "A...B" as a shortcut for the merge base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
See TRANSPLANTING A TOPIC BRANCH WITH --ONTO above for examples.
- --keep-base
-
Set the starting point at which to create the new commits to the merge base of <upstream> and <branch>. Running
gitrebase--keep-base<upstream> <branch> is equivalent to runninggitrebase--reapply-cherry-picks--no-fork-point--onto<upstream>...<branch> <upstream> <branch>.This option is useful in the case where one is developing a feature on top of an upstream branch. While the feature is being worked on, the upstream branch may advance and it may not be the best idea to keep rebasing on top of the upstream but to keep the base commit as-is. As the base commit is unchanged this option implies
--reapply-cherry-picksto avoid losing commits.Although both this option and
--fork-pointfind the merge base between <upstream> and <branch>, this option uses the merge base as the starting point on which new commits will be created, whereas--fork-pointuses the merge base to determine the set of commits which will be rebased.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- <upstream>
-
Upstream branch to compare against. May be any valid commit, not just an existing branch name. Defaults to the configured upstream for the current branch.
- <branch>
-
Working branch; defaults to
HEAD. - --apply
-
Use applying strategies to rebase (calling
git-aminternally). This option may become a no-op in the future once the merge backend handles everything the apply one does.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --empty=(drop|keep|stop)
-
How to handle commits that are not empty to start and are not clean cherry-picks of any upstream commit, but which become empty after rebasing (because they contain a subset of already upstream changes):
drop-
The commit will be dropped. This is the default behavior.
keep-
The commit will be kept. This option is implied when
--execis specified unless-i/--interactiveis also specified. stopask-
The rebase will halt when the commit is applied, allowing you to choose whether to drop it, edit files more, or just commit the empty changes. This option is implied when
-i/--interactiveis specified.askis a deprecated synonym ofstop.
Note that commits which start empty are kept (unless
--no-keep-emptyis specified), and commits which are clean cherry-picks (as determined bygitlog--cherry-mark...) are detected and dropped as a preliminary step (unless--reapply-cherry-picksor--keep-baseis passed).See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --no-keep-empty
- --keep-empty
-
Do not keep commits that start empty before the rebase (i.e. that do not change anything from its parent) in the result. The default is to keep commits which start empty, since creating such commits requires passing the
--allow-emptyoverride flag togitcommit, signifying that a user is very intentionally creating such a commit and thus wants to keep it.Usage of this flag will probably be rare, since you can get rid of commits that start empty by just firing up an interactive rebase and removing the lines corresponding to the commits you don’t want. This flag exists as a convenient shortcut, such as for cases where external tools generate many empty commits and you want them all removed.
For commits which do not start empty but become empty after rebasing, see the
--emptyflag.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --reapply-cherry-picks
- --no-reapply-cherry-picks
-
Reapply all clean cherry-picks of any upstream commit instead of preemptively dropping them. (If these commits then become empty after rebasing, because they contain a subset of already upstream changes, the behavior towards them is controlled by the
--emptyflag.)In the absence of
--keep-base(or if--no-reapply-cherry-picksis given), these commits will be automatically dropped. Because this necessitates reading all upstream commits, this can be expensive in repositories with a large number of upstream commits that need to be read. When using the merge backend, warnings will be issued for each dropped commit (unless--quietis given). Advice will also be issued unlessadvice.skippedCherryPicksis set to false (see git-config[1]).--reapply-cherry-picksallows rebase to forgo reading all upstream commits, potentially improving performance.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --allow-empty-message
-
No-op. Rebasing commits with an empty message used to fail and this option would override that behavior, allowing commits with empty messages to be rebased. Now commits with an empty message do not cause rebasing to halt.
See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- -m
- --merge
-
Using merging strategies to rebase (default).
Note that a rebase merge works by replaying each commit from the working branch on top of the <upstream> branch. Because of this, when a merge conflict happens, the side reported as ours is the so-far rebased series, starting with <upstream>, and theirs is the working branch. In other words, the sides are swapped.
See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- -s <strategy>
- --strategy=<strategy>
-
Use the given merge strategy, instead of the default
ort. This implies--merge.Because
gitrebasereplays each commit from the working branch on top of the <upstream> branch using the given strategy, using theoursstrategy simply empties all patches from the <branch>, which makes little sense.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- -X <strategy-option>
- --strategy-option=<strategy-option>
-
Pass the <strategy-option> through to the merge strategy. This implies
--mergeand, if no strategy has been specified,-sort. Note the reversal of ours and theirs as noted above for the-moption.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
--rerere-autoupdate--no-rerere-autoupdate-
After the rerere mechanism reuses a recorded resolution on the current conflict to update the files in the working tree, allow it to also update the index with the result of resolution.
--no-rerere-autoupdateis a good way to double-check what git-rerere[1] did and catch potential mismerges, before committing the result to the index with a separate git-add[1]. - -S[<keyid>]
- --gpg-sign[=<keyid>]
- --no-gpg-sign
-
GPG-sign commits. The
keyidargument is optional and defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space.--no-gpg-signis useful to countermand bothcommit.gpgSignconfiguration variable, and earlier--gpg-sign. - -q
- --quiet
-
Be quiet. Implies
--no-stat. - -v
- --verbose
-
Be verbose. Implies
--stat. - --stat
-
Show a diffstat of what changed upstream since the last rebase. The diffstat is also controlled by the configuration option rebase.stat.
- -n
- --no-stat
-
Do not show a diffstat as part of the rebase process.
- --no-verify
-
This option bypasses the pre-rebase hook. See also githooks[5].
- --verify
-
Allows the pre-rebase hook to run, which is the default. This option can be used to override
--no-verify. See also githooks[5]. - -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. Implies
--apply.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --no-ff
- --force-rebase
- -f
-
Individually replay all rebased commits instead of fast-forwarding over the unchanged ones. This ensures that the entire history of the rebased branch is composed of new commits.
You may find this helpful after reverting a topic branch merge, as this option recreates the topic branch with fresh commits so it can be remerged successfully without needing to "revert the reversion" (see the revert-a-faulty-merge How-To for details).
- --fork-point
- --no-fork-point
-
Use reflog to find a better common ancestor between <upstream> and <branch> when calculating which commits have been introduced by <branch>.
When
--fork-pointis active, fork_point will be used instead of <upstream> to calculate the set of commits to rebase, where fork_point is the result ofgitmerge-base--fork-point<upstream> <branch> command (see git-merge-base[1]). If fork_point ends up being empty, the <upstream> will be used as a fallback.If <upstream> or
--keep-baseis given on the command line, then the default is--no-fork-point, otherwise the default is--fork-point. See alsorebase.forkpointin git-config[1].If your branch was based on <upstream> but <upstream> was rewound and your branch contains commits which were dropped, this option can be used with
--keep-basein order to drop those commits from your branch.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --ignore-whitespace
-
Ignore whitespace differences when trying to reconcile differences. Currently, each backend implements an approximation of this behavior:
- apply backend
-
When applying a patch, ignore changes in whitespace in context lines. Unfortunately, this means that if the "old" lines being replaced by the patch differ only in whitespace from the existing file, you will get a merge conflict instead of a successful patch application.
- merge backend
-
Treat lines with only whitespace changes as unchanged when merging. Unfortunately, this means that any patch hunks that were intended to modify whitespace and nothing else will be dropped, even if the other side had no changes that conflicted.
- --whitespace=<option>
-
This flag is passed to the
gitapplyprogram (see git-apply[1]) that applies the patch. Implies--apply.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
-
Instead of using the current time as the committer date, use the author date of the commit being rebased as the committer date. This option implies
--force-rebase.Warning
The history walking machinery assumes that commits have non-decreasing commit timestamps. You should consider if you really need to use this option. Then you should only use this option to override the committer date when rebasing commits on top of a base which commit is older (in terms of the commit date) than the oldest commit you are applying (in terms of the author date). - --ignore-date
- --reset-author-date
-
Instead of using the author date of the original commit, use the current time as the author date of the rebased commit. This option implies
--force-rebase.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --signoff
-
Add a
Signed-off-bytrailer to all the rebased commits. Note that if--interactiveis given then only commits marked to be picked, edited or reworded will have the trailer added.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --trailer=<trailer>
-
Append the given trailer to every rebased commit message, processed via git-interpret-trailers[1]. This option implies
--force-rebase.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- -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).
The commit list format can be changed by setting the configuration option rebase.instructionFormat. A customized instruction format will automatically have the commit hash prepended to the format.
See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- -r
- --rebase-merges[=(rebase-cousins|no-rebase-cousins)]
- --no-rebase-merges
-
By default, a rebase will simply drop merge commits from the todo list, and put the rebased commits into a single, linear branch. With
--rebase-merges, the rebase will instead try to preserve the branching structure within the commits that are to be rebased, by recreating the merge commits. Any resolved merge conflicts or manual amendments in these merge commits will have to be resolved/re-applied manually.--no-rebase-mergescan be used to countermand both therebase.rebaseMergesconfig option and a previous--rebase-merges.When rebasing merges, there are two modes:
rebase-cousinsandno-rebase-cousins. If the mode is not specified, it defaults tono-rebase-cousins. Inno-rebase-cousinsmode, commits which do not have <upstream> as direct ancestor will keep their original branch point, i.e. commits that would be excluded by git-log[1]'s--ancestry-pathoption will keep their original ancestry by default. Inrebase-cousinsmode, such commits are instead rebased onto <upstream> (or <onto>, if specified).It is currently only possible to recreate the merge commits using the
ortmerge strategy; different merge strategies can be used only via explicitexecgitmerge-s<strategy> [...] commands.See also REBASING MERGES and INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- -x <cmd>
- --exec <cmd>
-
Append "exec <cmd>" after each line creating a commit in the final history. <cmd> will be interpreted as one or more shell commands. Any command that fails will interrupt the rebase, with exit code 1.
You may execute several commands by either using one instance of
--execwith several commands:git rebase -i --exec "cmd1 && cmd2 && ..."
or by giving more than one
--exec:git rebase -i --exec "cmd1" --exec "cmd2" --exec ...
If
--autosquashis used,execlines will not be appended for the intermediate commits, and will only appear at the end of each squash/fixup series.This uses the
--interactivemachinery internally, but it can be run without an explicit--interactive.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --root
-
Rebase all commits reachable from <branch>, instead of limiting them with an <upstream>. This allows you to rebase the root commit(s) on a branch.
See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --autosquash
- --no-autosquash
-
Automatically squash commits with specially formatted messages into previous commits being rebased. If a commit message starts with "squash! ", "fixup! " or "amend! ", the remainder of the title is taken as a commit specifier, which matches a previous commit if it matches the title or the hash of that commit. If no commit matches fully, matches of the specifier with the start of commit titles are considered.
In the rebase todo list, the actions of squash, fixup and amend commits are changed from
picktosquash,fixuporfixup-C, respectively, and they are moved right after the commit they modify. The--interactiveoption can be used to review and edit the todo list before proceeding.The recommended way to create commits with squash markers is by using the
--squash,--fixup,--fixup=amend:or--fixup=reword:options of git-commit[1], which take the target commit as an argument and automatically fill in the title of the new commit from that.Setting configuration variable
rebase.autoSquashto true enables auto-squashing by default for interactive rebase. The--no-autosquashoption can be used to override that setting.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.
- --autostash
- --no-autostash
-
Automatically create a temporary stash entry before the operation begins, and apply it after the operation ends. This means that you can run rebase on a dirty worktree. However, use with care: the final stash application after a successful rebase might result in non-trivial conflicts.
- --reschedule-failed-exec
- --no-reschedule-failed-exec
-
Automatically reschedule
execcommands that failed. This only makes sense in interactive mode (or when an--execoption was provided).This option applies once a rebase is started. It is preserved for the whole rebase based on, in order, the command line option provided to the initial
gitrebase, therebase.rescheduleFailedExecconfiguration (see git-config[1] or "CONFIGURATION" below), or it defaults to false.Recording this option for the whole rebase is a convenience feature. Otherwise an explicit
--no-reschedule-failed-execat the start would be overridden by the presence of arebase.rescheduleFailedExec=trueconfiguration whengitrebase--continueis invoked. Currently, you cannot pass--[no-]reschedule-failed-exectogitrebase--continue. - --update-refs
- --no-update-refs
-
Automatically force-update any branches that point to commits that are being rebased. Any branches that are checked out in a worktree are not updated in this way.
If the configuration variable
rebase.updateRefsis set, then this option can be used to override and disable this setting.See also INCOMPATIBLE OPTIONS below.