Merge with squash all changes from another branch as a single commit

Question

In Git  is there a way to merge all changes from one branch into another  but squash to a single commit at the same time     I often work on a new feature in a separate branch and will regularly commit push - mainly for backup or to transfer what I m working on to another machine   Mostly those commits say  Feature xxx WIP  or something redundant   Once that work is finished and I want to merge WIP branch back into master  I d like to discard all those intermediate commits  and just a have a single clean commit   Is there an easy way to do this    Alternatively  how about a command that squashes all commits on a branch since the point where it was branched

User · Answer

I have created my own git alias to do exactly this. I'm calling it git freebase! It will take your existing messy, unrebasable feature branch and recreate it so that it becomes a new branch with the same name with its commits squashed into one commit and rebased onto the branch you specify (master by default). At the very end, it will allow you to use whatever commit message you like for your newly "freebased" branch.

Install it by placing the following alias in your .gitconfig:

[alias]
  freebase = "!f() { \
    TOPIC="$(git branch | grep '\\*' | cut -d ' ' -f2)"; \
    NEWBASE="${1:-master}"; \
    PREVSHA1="$(git rev-parse HEAD)"; \
    echo "Freebaseing $TOPIC onto $NEWBASE, previous sha1 was $PREVSHA1"; \
    echo "---"; \
    git reset --hard "$NEWBASE"; \
    git merge --squash "$PREVSHA1"; \
    git commit; \
  }; f"

Use it from your feature branch by running: git freebase <new-base>

I've only tested this a few times, so read it first and make sure you want to run it. As a little safety measure it does print the starting sha1 so you should be able to restore your old branch if anything goes wrong.

I'll be maintaining it in my dotfiles repo on github: https://github.com/stevecrozz/dotfiles/blob/master/.gitconfig

User · Answer

Using git merge --squash  lt feature branch gt  as the accepted answer suggests does the trick but it will not show the merged branch as actually merged  Therefore an even better solution is to   Create a new branch from the latest master  commit in the master branch where the feature branch initiated  Merge  lt feature branch gt  into the above using git merge --squash Merge the newly created branch into master  This way  the feature branch will contain only one commit and the merge will be represented in a short and tidy illustration   This wiki explains the procedure in detail  In the following example  the left hand screenshot is the result of qgit and the right hand screenshot is the result of  git log --graph --decorate --pretty oneline --abbrev-commit  Both screenshots show the same range of commits in the same repository  Nonetheless  the right one is more compact thanks to --squash   Over time  the master branch deviated from db  When the db feature was ready  a new branch called tag was created in the same commit of master that db has its root  From tag a git merge --squash db was performed and then all changes were staged and committed in a single commit  From master  tag got merged  git merge tag  The branch search is irrelevant and not merged in any way

User · Answer

git merge --squash  lt feature branch gt  is a good option  The  git commit  tells you all feature branch commit message with your choice to keep it     For less commit merge     git merge  do x times --git reset HEAD  --soft then git commit     Risk - deleted files may come back

User · Answer

2020 updated With the --squash flag it looks like two parallel branches with no relation   Sorting commits related to date looks like   Personally  i don t like --squash option  try this trick  maybe it fits your needs  i use it for small projects   git init git checkout -b dev Several commits in dev After you did some great commits in dev but not merged to master yet   if you do not want all commits copied to master branch  then make intentionally change something in master and  add some empty lines in README file and commit in master   git merge dev It results merge conflict empty lines in README   resolve it  commit with new message you want  and you are DONE  Here is the visual representation of it   null commit for intentionally merge conflict  name it anything you prefer

User · Answer

You can do this with the  rebase  command  Let s call the branches  main  and  feature    git checkout feature git rebase main   The rebase command will replay all of the commits on  feature  as one commit with a parent equal to  main    You might want to run git merge main before git rebase main if  main  has changed since  feature  was created  or since the most recent merge   That way  you still have your full history in case you had a merge conflict   After the rebase  you can merge your branch to main  which should result in a fast-forward merge   git checkout main git merge feature   See the rebase page of Understanding Git Conceptually for a good overview

User · Answer

Found it   Merge command has a --squash option  git checkout master git merge --squash WIP   at this point everything is merged  possibly conflicted  but not committed   So I can now   git add   git commit -m  Merged WIP

User · Answer

Another option is git merge --squash  lt feature branch gt  then finally do a git commit   From Git merge     --squash      --no-squash       Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge   happened  except for the merge   information   but do not actually make   a commit or move the HEAD  nor record    GIT DIR MERGE HEAD to cause the next   git commit command to create a merge   commit  This allows you to create a   single commit on top of the current   branch whose effect is the same as   merging another branch  or more in   case of an octopus

User · Answer

Try git rebase -i master on your feature branch   You can then change all but one  pick  to  squash  to combine the commits   See squashing commits with rebase  Finally  you can then do the merge from master branch

[git] Merge (with squash) all changes from another branch as a single commit

Examples related to git