1959

I have a remote Git server, here is the scenario which I want to perform:

  • For each bug/feature I create a different Git branch

  • I keep on committing my code in that Git branch with un-official Git messages

  • In top repository we have to do one commit for one bug with official Git message

So how can I merge my branch to remote branch so that they get just one commit for all my check-ins (I even want to provide commit message for this)?

M. Justin's user avatar
M. Justin
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askedMar 15, 2011 at 7:47
SunnyShah's user avatar
8
  • 1
    Do you want to keep the individual commits on those other branches?CommentedMar 15, 2011 at 8:15
  • 40
    I typically usegit rebase -i to collapse all my commits into one commit and re-write the commit message. Then I send it upstream.CommentedNov 27, 2013 at 19:28
  • 45
    git merge --squash does it all on the command line in one shot and you just hope it works.git rebase -i brings up an editor and lets you fine-tune the rebase. It's slower, but you can see what you're doing. Also, there are difference between rebase and merge which are a little too involved to address in a comment.CommentedDec 17, 2015 at 18:49
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    the problem with all these answers is that you have to be on the master branch locally and the run the merge --squash command... I want to run the merge --squash from the feature branch not the master branch..so that when I am done, I can push the feature branch to the remote and submit a PR, is that possible?CommentedNov 1, 2016 at 23:34
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    @AlexanderMills, I think you just need a second feature branch (cloned from the master branch). Do themerge --squash from the old to the new one, and then merge the new branch to master. The old branch becomes obsolete.CommentedMar 28, 2018 at 16:12

15 Answers15

3044

Say your bug fix branch is calledbugfix and you want to merge it intomaster:

git checkout mastergit merge --squash bugfixgit commit

This will take all the commits from thebugfix branch, squash them into 1 commit, and merge it with yourmaster branch.


Explanation:

git checkout master

Switches to yourmaster branch.

git merge --squash bugfix

Takes all commits from thebugfix branch and groups it for a 1 commit with your current branch.
(no merge commit appears; you could resolve conflicts manually before following commit)

git commit

Creates a single commit from the merged changes.

Omitting the-m parameter lets you modify a draft commit message containing every message from your squashed commits before finalizing your commit.

am0wa's user avatar
am0wa
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answeredMar 15, 2011 at 8:16
abyx's user avatar
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17 Comments

If you want to keep references to the old commit messages you can writegit commit (without-m param) and you will get to modify a drafted commit message containing all commit messages that you squashed.
You can achieve the same by doinggit commit --amend -m '...' later on.
In case merge conflicts happen and you resolve these conflicts,git commit will no longer show the useful commit message containing all commit messages you squashed. In that case, trygit commit --file .git/SQUASH_MSG (viastackoverflow.com/a/11230783/923560 ).
Keep in mind thatsquashing will by default attribute the commits to the squasher. To keep the original author, you need to explicitly specify it like so:git commit -a --author="Author" --message="Issue title #id"
git merge --squash allows you to create a single commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the same as merging another branch. But it won't produce the merge record, which means your pull-request as result would have no changes, yet won't be marked as merged! So, you will need just to delete that branch to be done.
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205

What finally cleared this up for me was acomment showing that:

git checkout maingit merge --squash feature

is the equivalent of doing:

git checkout featuregit diff main > feature.patchgit checkout mainpatch -p1 < feature.patchgit add .

When I want to merge a feature branch with 105(!!) commits and have them all squashed into one, I don't want togit rebase -i origin/master because I need to separately resolve merge conflicts foreach of the intermediate commits (or at least the ones which git can't figure out itself). Usinggit merge --squash gets me the result I want, of a single commit for merging an entire feature branch. And, I only need to do at most one manual conflict resolution.

answeredAug 19, 2014 at 15:59
Dan Kohn's user avatar

8 Comments

I highly suggest performing the merge in the feature branch firstgit merge master, and only thengit merge --squash feature in the master branch.
@dotancohen Sorry to dredge up an old comment :) What is gained from merging in the feature branch before performinggit merge --squash feature from the master branch?
You want to merge master into the feature branch first, and deal with any manual fixes in your feature branch. That also lets you run tests and make sure your feature branch works correctly. Then, you are guaranteed that you can do an automatic merge of your feature branch into master.
@dankohn I suggest you add the explanation in your above comment into your answer.
@bitsmack: you would merge master into feature first. This give you the opportunity to resolve conflicts on the feature before merging the feature into master
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162

You want to merge with the squash option. That's if you want to do it one branch at a time.

git merge --squash feature1

If you want to merge all the branches at the same time as single commits, then first rebase interactively and squash each feature then octopus merge:

git checkout feature1git rebase -i master

Squash into one commit then repeat for the other features.

git checkout mastergit merge feature1 feature2 feature3 ...

That last merge is an "octopus merge" because it's merging a lot of branches at once.

starball's user avatar
starball
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answeredMar 15, 2011 at 8:08
Adam Dymitruk's user avatar

8 Comments

Why are you rebasing?
@UmairAshraf it's an interactive rebase which gives you the option to do a squash within your branch.
Rebasing is a bad idea. Don't rebase already published commits
@Sebi2020 git merge --squash will rebase your already published commits in a way that's worse than an interactive rebase. An interactive rebase (on a feature branch) carry little to no adverse effects.
@xiix This only holds true if you the only one working with the feature branch. This is not an assumption you can make. I recommend to read the pages related to rebasing onGit-SCM. It states "Do not rebase commits that exist outside your repository and people may have based work on them." And if you don't know for sure if people already based work on published commits (which you can't know because of the decentral nature of git) you shouln't do that.
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46

Suppose you worked in feature/task1 with multiple commits.

  1. Go to your project branch (project/my_project)

     git checkout project/my_project
  2. Create a new branch (feature/task1_bugfix)

     git checkout -b feature/task1_bugfix
  3. Merge with the--squash option

     git merge --squash feature/task1
  4. Create a single commit

     git commit -am "add single comments"
  5. Push your branch

     git push --set-upstream origin feature/task1_bugfix
spottedmahn's user avatar
spottedmahn
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answeredDec 27, 2018 at 0:24
Farid Haq's user avatar

Comments

30

MergenewFeature branch intomaster with a custom commit:

git merge --squash newFeature && git commit -m 'Your custom commit message';

If instead, you do

git merge --squash newFeature && git commit

you will get a commit message that will include all thenewFeature branch commits, which you can customize.

I explain it thoroughly here:https://youtu.be/FQNAIacelT4

answeredMar 17, 2017 at 11:10
Vagelis Prokopiou's user avatar

Comments

25

If you have alreadygit merge bugfix onmain, you can squash your merge commit into one with:

git reset --soft HEAD^1git commit
answeredMar 13, 2015 at 17:50
qwertzguy's user avatar

3 Comments

git reset --soft HEAD^1 seems to undo the last commit performedbefore the merge, at least in case of the merge being a fast-forward.
@JesperMatthiesen in case of a fast-forward you don't get a merge commit, so then you would dogit reset --soft HEAD^<number-of-commits-to-squash>.
This helped me to squash everything into a single commit after a downstream merge.
21

I know this question isn't about Github specifically, but since Github is so widely used and this is the answer I was looking for, I'll share it here.

Github has the ability to perform squash merges, depending on the merge options enabled for the repository.

If squash merges are enabled, the "Squash and merge" option should appear in the dropdown under the "Merge" button.

Screenshot of "Squash and merge" Github feature

answeredFeb 22, 2019 at 23:14
Aaron's user avatar

1 Comment

GitHub uses the default email associated with your account. If you have multiple email addresses, and you need to use a secondary one, you can't use GH UI.
5

To squash your local branch before pushing it:

  1. checkout the branch in question to work on if it is not already checked out.

  2. Find the sha of the oldest commit you wish to keep.

  3. Create/checkout a new branch (tmp1) from that commit.

    git checkout -b tmp1 <sha1-of-commit>

  4. Merge the original branch into the new one squashing.

    git merge --squash <original branch>

  5. Commit the changes which have been created by the merge, with a summary commit message.

    git commit -m <msg>

  6. Checkout the original branch you want to squash.

    git checkout <branch>

  7. Reset to the original commit sha you wish to keep.

    git reset --soft <sha1>

  8. Rebase this branch based on the new tmp1 branch.

    git rebase tmp1

  9. That's it - now delete the temporary tmp1 branch once you're sure everything is ok.

answeredMar 30, 2020 at 13:07
Jool's user avatar

Comments

1

For Git

Create a new feature

via Terminal/Shell:

git checkout origin/feature/<featurename>git merge --squash origin/feature/<featurename>

This doesnt commit it, allows you to review it first.

Then commit, and finish feature from this new branch, and delete/ignore the old one (the one you did dev on).

answeredOct 5, 2017 at 14:33
Demian Berisford-Maynard's user avatar

2 Comments

@Melebius The only reference to "SourceTree" is in your sentence, if it was a tag or previous question: It doesn't exist anymore.
@JordanStefanelli SourceTree was used in theoriginal version of this answer. Thanks for notifying it’s fixed!
1
git checkout YOUR_RELEASE_BRANCHgit pullgit checkout -b A_NEW_BRANCHgit merge --squash YOUR_BRANCH_WITH_MULTIPLE_COMMITSgit commit -am "squashing all commits into one"git push --set-upstream origin A_NEW_BRANCH
answeredAug 27, 2020 at 3:23
izy's user avatar

1 Comment

Thank you for including thepull. All the other responses seem to assume that nothing has changed in the remote release branch since the last time you were hanging out on it....
0

if you get error: Committing is not possible because you have unmerged files.

git checkout mastergit merge --squash bugfixgit add .git commit -m "Message"

fixed all the Conflict files

git add .

you could also use

git add [filename]
answeredDec 18, 2019 at 7:37
ResUta's user avatar

Comments

-1

Your feature branch is done and ready to commit to master, develop or other target branch with only one commit

  • Go to merge branch : git checkout master && git pull
  • Create a work branch from your clean local master : git checkout -b work
  • Merge squash your feature branch on work : git merge --squash your_feature_branch.
  • Commit with default or a new message : git commit (with a specific or default message)
  • Go back to your feature branch : git checkout your_feature_branch
  • Point your feature branch to work dir : git reset --hard work
  • Verify but you are ready to push : git push -f
  • Then clean up work branch if needed

Replace master with your target branch : develop and so on

  • No need to specify how many commit from your master to your feature branch. Git takes care*
answeredDec 16, 2020 at 21:02
Breton F.'s user avatar

Comments

-1

Assume the name of the branch where you made multiple commits is called bugfix/123, and you want to squash these commits.
First, create a new branch from develop (or whatever the name of your repo is). Assume the name of the new branch is called bugfix/123_up. Checkout this branch in git bash -

  • git fetch
  • git checkout bugfix/123_up
  • git merge bugfix/123 --squash
  • git commit -m "your message"
  • git push origin bugfix/123_up

Now this branch will have only one commit with all your changes in it.

answeredFeb 9, 2021 at 14:23
Pavan kumar D's user avatar

Comments

-2

You can use tool I've created to make this process easier:git-squash. For example to squash all commits on feature branch that has been branched from master branch, write:

git squash mastergit push --force
answeredJun 1, 2020 at 19:37
sheerun's user avatar

Comments

-2

Use

git status

to check what's going on.

Then

git checkout master git merge --squash bugfixgit add (add which files you want or use wildcard command like ".")

Then

git commit -m "message"

And now last but not the least

git push -u origin master

Hereorigin can be other remote you prefer.

Gino Mempin's user avatar
Gino Mempin
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answeredAug 19, 2020 at 10:28
Let's L.C.E's user avatar

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