Difference between git pull and git pull --rebase

Question

I started using git sometime back and do not fully understand the intricacies  My basic question here is to find out the difference between a git pull and git pull --rebase   since adding the --rebase option does not seem to do something very different   just does a pull   Please help me with understanding the difference

User · Answer

Suppose you have two commits in local branch:

      D---E master
     /
A---B---C---F origin/master

After "git pull", will be:

      D--------E  
     /          \
A---B---C---F----G   master, origin/master

After "git pull --rebase", there will be no merge point G. Note that D and E become different commits:

A---B---C---F---D'---E'   master, origin/master

User · Answer

Sometimes we have an upstream that rebased rewound a branch we re depending on  This can be a big problem -- causing messy conflicts for us if we re downstream  The magic is git pull --rebase A normal git pull is  loosely speaking  something like this  we ll use a remote called origin and a branch called foo in all these examples     assume current checked out branch is  quot foo quot  git fetch origin git merge origin foo  At first glance  you might think that a git pull --rebase does just this  git fetch origin git rebase origin foo  But that will not help if the upstream rebase involved any  quot squashing quot   meaning that the patch-ids of the commits changed  not just their order   Which means git pull --rebase has to do a little bit more than that  Here s an explanation of what it does and how  Let s say your starting point is this  a---b---c---d---e   origin foo   also your local  quot foo quot    Time passes  and you have made some commits on top of your own  quot foo quot   a---b---c---d---e---p---q---r  foo   Meanwhile  in a fit of anti-social rage  the upstream maintainer has not only rebased his  quot foo quot   he even used a squash or two  His commit chain now looks like this  a---b c---d e---f   origin foo   A git pull at this point would result in chaos  Even a git fetch  git rebase origin foo would not cut it  because commits  quot b quot  and  quot c quot  on one side  and commit  quot b c quot  on the other  would conflict   And similarly with d  e  and d e   What git pull --rebase does  in this case  is  git fetch origin git rebase --onto origin foo e foo  This gives you     a---b c---d e---f---p ---q ---r   foo    You may still get conflicts  but they will be genuine conflicts  between p q r and a b c d e f   and not conflicts caused by b c conflicting with b c  etc   Answer taken from  and slightly modified   http   gitolite com git-pull--rebase

User · Answer

In the very most simple case of no collisions   with rebase  rebases your local commits ontop of remote HEAD and does not create a merge merge commit   without normal  merges and creates a merge commit   See also   man git-pull     More precisely  git pull runs git fetch with the given parameters and          calls git merge to merge the retrieved branch heads into the current          branch  With --rebase  it runs git rebase instead of git merge    See also  When should I use git pull --rebase  http   git-scm com book en Git-Branching-Rebasing

User · Answer

git pull   git fetch   git merge against tracking upstream branch  git pull --rebase   git fetch   git rebase against tracking upstream branch  If you want to know how git merge and git rebase differ  read this

User · Answer

For this is important to understand the difference between Merge and Rebase      Rebases are how changes should pass from the top of hierarchy downwards   and merges are how they flow back upwards    For details refer - http   www derekgourlay com archives 428

[git] Difference between git pull and git pull --rebase

Examples related to git

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