Rebasing

When working on a feature branch, it's essential to incorporate the latest updates from the master branch. There are two common approaches to achieve this: merging and rebasing. Both methods integrate changes from master but differ in how they manage commit history.

Merging the Master Branch

Merging is a straightforward way to combine the master branch with your feature branch. This method creates a new merge commit that brings in all the changes from master:

(sarah)$ git merge master

Rebasing Branches

Rebasing involves reapplying your feature branch's commits onto the tip of the updated master branch, resulting in a cleaner, linear commit history. Unlike merging, rebasing creates new commit hashes because it rewrites the commit history.

(sarah)$ git rebase master

Key Considerations

• Merging preserves the original commit history, including unique commit hash identifiers.
• Rebasing copies commits from one branch to another, which means new commit hashes are generated.
• Collaborating on a branch that has been rebased may require additional communication with team members to prevent integration issues.

Summary

Rebasing provides an effective method to update your feature branch by placing its commits on top of the latest master branch changes. While this approach creates a cleaner commit history, it alters commit hashes by rewriting history, so proper coordination with your team is critical.

For further guidance on Git workflows, explore our Git Documentation.