threads / patch / 15062

patchNote the use of "rebase -i" to squash consecutive commits into one.

Subject: [PATCH] Note the use of "rebase -i" to squash consecutive commits into one.

## tl;dr

2 messages between Aug 17, 2008 and Aug 19, 2008. Diffs are folded; open one to read it.

replies: 1people: 2as markdown or json

Eric Hanchrow· Aug 17, 2008, 22:32 UTC · lore

---
 Documentation/git-rebase.txt |   24 +++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

Show changes to Documentation/git-rebase.txt +23 −1

diff --git a/Documentation/git-rebase.txt b/Documentation/git-rebase.txt
index 59c1b02..074f38b 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-rebase.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-rebase.txt
@@ -341,7 +341,29 @@ was HEAD~4 becomes the new HEAD. To achieve that, you would call
 $ git rebase -i HEAD~5
 ----------------------
 
-And move the first patch to the end of the list.
+And move the first patch to the end of the list.  Similarly, you can
+squash a bunch of consecutive commits into one commit.  If you start
+with this:
+
+------------
+    Q---R---S---T---U master
+------------
+
+then the command
+
+----------------------
+$ git rebase -i HEAD~3
+----------------------
+
+would let you edit the last three commits -- S, T, and U; if you
+edit the lines corresponding to T and U by changing "pick" to
+"squash", the result will be
+
+------------
+    Q---R---S' master
+------------
+
+where S' contains all the changes that were in S, T, and U.
 
 You might want to preserve merges, if you have a history like this:

-- 
1.6.0.rc3.6.gf8030

Junio C Hamano· Aug 19, 2008, 03:32 UTC · re: Eric Hanchrow · lore

Re: [PATCH] Note the use of "rebase -i" to squash consecutive commits into one.

This is missing sign-off.

More importantly, I do not think adding an extra illustration that starts talking about an example history that is _different_ from what was being discussed is a good idea. The end result lacks coherence and forces the reader to reset his mind for each example.

I'd suggest you to rewrite the example part that begins a few lines before you touched. Present the example "original" history with illustration first (and call it A---B---C---D---E---F---G, not QRSTU), and clarify the existing example of reordering the last 5 commits, and show the history after such reordering.

Then you talk about squashing, with before-and-after illustrations, but base that illustration on the same example history. That way, the reader has to understand the original scene only once to grok both examples.