What does it mean to squash commits?
4 min read
Asked by: Sara Ortiz
What does it mean to squash commits in Git? Squashing is a way to rewrite your commit history; this action helps to clean up and simplify your commit history before sharing your work with team members. Squashing a commit in Git means that you are taking the changes from one commit and adding them to the Parent Commit.
Should I squash commits?
Before you start, keep in mind that you should squash your commits BEFORE you ever push your changes to a remote repository. If you rewrite your history once others have made changes to it, you’re asking for trouble… or conflicts.
How do you squash commits step by step?
Git Squash Commits
- Step1: Check the commit history.
- Step 2: Choose the commits to squash.
- Step 3: update the commits.
- Step 4: Push the squashed commit.
How do you squash all the commits?
How to squash commits
- Run git log to determine how many commits to squash. …
- Run git rebase -i HEAD~4 (with 4 being the number of commits)
- OR.
- Run git rebase -i [SHA] (where [SHA] is the commit after the last one you want to squash. …
- You should see a list of commits, each commit starting with the word “pick”.
What is difference between merge and squash commit?
The commit looks like a normal commit on feature . It squashes the commits on main (line 20 and line 14) into one commit and does not have a commit path from main . git merge –squash alters commit history but produces cleaner history.
Why are squashing commits good?
As a general rule, when merging a pull request from a feature branch with a messy commit history, you should squash your commits. There are exceptions, but in most cases, squashing results in a cleaner Git history that’s easier for the team to read.
Do I need to force push after squash?
Squash to 1 commit. If you have previously pushed your code to a remote branch, you will need to force push.
How do I reset my head?
To hard reset files to HEAD on Git, use the “git reset” command with the “–hard” option and specify the HEAD. The purpose of the “git reset” command is to move the current HEAD to the commit specified (in this case, the HEAD itself, one commit before HEAD and so on).
What is squash and merge in GitHub?
When you select the Squash and merge option on a pull request on GitHub.com, the pull request’s commits are squashed into a single commit. Instead of seeing all of a contributor’s individual commits from a topic branch, the commits are combined into one commit and merged into the default branch.
How do you undo a commit?
Undo Last Git Commit with reset. The easiest way to undo the last Git commit is to execute the “git reset” command with the “–soft” option that will preserve changes done to your files. You have to specify the commit to undo which is “HEAD~1” in this case. The last commit will be removed from your Git history.
What is rebase vs squash?
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.
Can you squash commits on GitHub?
Squashing a commit
In GitHub Desktop, click Current Branch. In the list of branches, select the branch that has the commits that you want to squash. Click History. Select the commits to squash and drop them on the commit you want to combine them with.
Why is rebase better than merge?
Rebasing is better to streamline a complex history, you are able to change the commit history by interactive rebase. You can remove undesired commits, squash two or more commits into one or edit the commit message. Rebase will present conflicts one commit at a time whereas merge will present them all at once.
What is cherry pick in git?
git cherry-pick is a powerful command that enables arbitrary Git commits to be picked by reference and appended to the current working HEAD. Cherry picking is the act of picking a commit from a branch and applying it to another. git cherry-pick can be useful for undoing changes.
What’s the difference between git fetch and git pull?
git fetch is the command that tells your local git to retrieve the latest meta-data info from the original (yet doesn’t do any file transferring. It’s more like just checking to see if there are any changes available). git pull on the other hand does that AND brings (copy) those changes from the remote repository.
