Git rebase is good when you want to combine some historical commits into one commit. This might be a good idea because your history contains too many unncessary test commits, or if you want to cut down the size of your git objects. On the other hand, changing history can be a dangerous thing, it means that everyone else using your repo needs to acknowledge the change by force pulling.
for example,
git log --oneline 291423b update setup 7732e24 update deployment files 5e0c60f Merge branch 'develop' e656609 update paths 1f35b9a Merge branch 'develop' c914ca6 update prod 746eff5 update readme 8754887 update readme ce9563d update staging
Now we want to remove everything between 291423b and ce9563d. Basically, you want to crunch everything from 291423b down to a point in history, ie ce9563d. Here comes rebase.
git rebase -i ce9563d pick 8c79382 update pick 8754887 update readme pick 746eff5 update readme pick c914ca6 update prod pick e656609 update paths pick 7732e24 update deployment files pick 291423b update setup # Rebase ce9563d..cd268a9 onto ce9563d # # Commands: # p, pick = use commit # r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message # e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending # s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit # f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message # # If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST. # However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted. #
Note that now the latest commit is at the bottom, exactly reverse of what you see in git log. If you delete any of the lines, the commit will be gone. This is a bad bad idea and its best not to do that, instead, use “f” or ‘s’ and leave the first commit as it is like so:
pick 8c79382 update f 8754887 update readme f 746eff5 update readme f c914ca6 update prod f e656609 update paths f 7732e24 update deployment files f 291423b update setup # Rebase ce9563d..cd268a9 onto ce9563d # # Commands: # p, pick = use commit # r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message # e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending # s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit # f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message # # If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST. # However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted. #
rebase will tell you if it encounters any problems. Fix them and you have to force push
git push origin --force
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