How to Rebase Git Branch

Choosing between git rebase and git merge remains one of the most discussed topics in the community. Some may say that you should always use merging, some may say that rebasing is a more correct way to do things. There is no right or wrong way of using these two commands. It mainly depends on the user and the workflow. In the scope of this topic we will show you how to rebase your branch.

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Steps to rebasing branch

Here are the steps to follow while rebasing a branch:

Fetching changes

You should receive the latest changes from a remote git repository. Thus the first step is running git fetch:

git fetch

Integrating changes

The second step is running git rebase. Rebase is a Git command which is used to integrate changes from one branch into another. The following command rebase the current branch from master (or choose any other branch like develop, suppose, the name of remote is origin, which is by default):

git rebase origin/master

After git rebase, conflicts may occur. You should resolve them and add your changes by running git add command:

git add .

Do not run git commit after git add .

After resolving the conflicts and adding the changes to the staging area, you must run git rebase with the --continue option:

git rebase --continue

If you want to cancel the rebasing rather than resolving the conflicts, you can run the following:

git rebase --abort

Pushing changes

The final step is git push (forced). This command uploads local repository content to a remote repository. To do that, run the command below:

git push origin HEAD -f

--force that is the same as -f overwrites the remote branch on the basis of your local branch. It destroys all the pushed changes made by other developers. It refers to the changes that you don't have in your local branch.

Here is an alternative and safer way to push your changes:

git push --force-with-lease origin HEAD

--force-with-lease is considered a safer option that will not overwrite the work done on the remote branch in case more commits were attached to it (for instance, by another developer). Moreover, it helps you to avoid overwriting another developer's work by force pushing.

Why do I have new un-added changes after a git-rebase?

It's possible to have new un-added changes after a git rebase because a rebase rewrites the commit history of your branch. When you rebase your branch onto another branch, git replays all the commits in your branch on top of the other branch, creating a new series of commits that represent the same changes but with a different history.

During the rebase process, git may encounter conflicts between your changes and changes in the other branch. In this case, git will pause the rebase and ask you to resolve the conflicts manually. After resolving the conflicts, you will need to stage the changes and continue with the rebase using the git rebase --continue command.

It's possible that you missed staging some of the changes or accidentally made new changes while resolving conflicts. In either case, the un-added changes would appear as modifications in your working directory.

To avoid this issue, it's important to carefully review your changes before and after a rebase, and ensure that you have staged and committed all the necessary changes. You can use the git status command to check the status of your working directory and the git log command to review the commit history of your branch.

Rebasing vs Merging

Rebasing and merging are both used to integrate changes from one branch into another differently. They are both used in different scenarios. If you need to update a feature branch, always choose to rebase for maintaining the branch history clean. It is generally true in situations where you are working on a feature branch that is not shared with other developers. Rebasing can help keep your feature branch up to date with the latest changes on the main branch, and also keep your commit history clean and linear. It keeps the commit history out of the branch, contrary to the git merge command, which is its alternative.

While, for individuals, rebasing is not recommended in the case of feature branch because when you share it with other developers, the process may create conflicting repositories. Once you need to put the branch changes into master, use merging. If you use merging too liberally, it will mess up git log and make difficult to understand the history. Merging preserves history whereas rebasing rewrites it. If you need to see the history absolutely the same as it happened, then use merge.

Fetching

The git fetch command downloads commits, files, and refs from a remote repository into the local repository. It updates your remote-tracking branches. The git fetch command allows you to see the progress of the central history, not forcing you to merge the changes into your repository. It does not affect your local work process.