Git Cookbook

Updating one's branch with commits pushed to branch master in the meantime

Load the branch to update:

git checkout mybranch

Make sure pending changes are committed:

git status
git add ...
git commit -m "message describing the change"

or stash (hide) them temporarly:

git stash

To reapply stashed changes:

git stash pop

Get up-to-date branches from the remote repository (origin) in the local repository (saved as origin/<branch name> - for instance origin/master is the local copy of branch master from the origin repository):

git fetch

To fetch branches from another remote:

git fetch <remote repository name>

Rebase: move commits of the current branch on top of a the local (refreshed) copy of the branch master (ie. origin/master). New commits are placed at the end.

git rebase origin/master

Managing conflicts while rebasing

Figure out what files are conflicting:

git status

Edit files to fix conflicts and mark conflicts as solved by adding the edited files, then continue rebasing:

git add <edited files>
git rebase --continue

If it's really a mess: cancel:

git rebase --abort

All those instructions are documented when a problem is detected while rebasing.

Managing commits

It is possible to interactively reorder commits in the current branch as well as to remove them or merge some commits together.

First thing is to get the hash ("id") of the commit right before the list of commits to edit:

git log

Display the list of commits made after some commit and manipulate it in a text editor (-i = interactive):

git rebase -i <hash of the preceding commit>

In the text editor window it is then possible to reorder commits (by changing the commit lines order), removing some of them (remove the lines), or merge some together ("squash"). It is also possible to change commit messages. All actions are described in comments below the list of commits in the text editor window. fixup is quite handy: it merges the commit with the previous one, keeping only the previous commit message.

Be aware that reordering/removing/squashing commits may create conflicts.

When done with commits manipulation, save and close editor => rebase is then triggered. If no change was done in the commits list, the rebase does nothing.

When changes must be added to the very last commit, instead of rebasing it as above, it is possible to simply amend it:

git add <files to add the previous commit>
git commit --amend

Rebasing/amending causes the commits tree to be rewritten, thus being incompatible with the branch available on the remote repository. Doing a usual git push will then be reported as failing. It is required to force the push:

git push origin mybranch -f

Be aware that a forced push will replace the former version of the branch on the remote repository. It is irreversible except if someone else still has a copy of the old branch.