I'm new to git and I'm trying to understand the difference between a squash and a rebase. As I understand it you perform a squash when doing a rebase.
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Let's start by the following example:
Now we have 3 options to merge changes of feature branch into master branch:
Merge commits
Will keep all commits history of the feature branch and move them into the master branch
Will add extra dummy commit.
Rebase and merge
Will append all commits history of the feature branch in the front of the master branch
Will NOT add extra dummy commit.
Squash and merge
Will group all feature branch commits into one commit then append it in the front of the master branch
Will add extra dummy commit.
You can find below how the master branch will look after each one of them.
In all cases:
We can safely DELETE the feature branch.
Merge commits: retains all of the commits in your branch and interleaves them with commits on the base branch
Merge Squash: retains the changes but omits the individual commits from history
Rebase: This moves the entire feature branch to begin on the tip of the master branch, effectively incorporating all of the new commits in master
More on here
Merge squash merges a tree (a sequence of commits) into a single commit. That is, it squashes all changes made in n commits into a single commit.
Rebasing is re-basing, that is, choosing a new base (parent commit) for a tree. Maybe the mercurial term for this is more clear: they call it transplant because it's just that: picking a new ground (parent commit, root) for a tree.
When doing an interactive rebase, you're given the option to either squash, pick, edit or skip the commits you are going to rebase.
Hope that was clear!
Source: Stackoverflow.com