You Git to Know When To Merge and Know When to Rebase

Where I work, we have recently switched to git for our vcs. Being the experienced Drupal Developer that I am, I am also an experienced git user. Git isn’t perfact and like most good tools, learning to use it is like learning to play the harmonica: the only differnece between someone who has used it for 10 hours and someone who has used it for 10 years is the amount of songs they know.

If you want to know how git works then go read this article explaining how git works. Otherwise keep reading and I will teach you the git pull --rebase song.

Why rebase?

If you don’t know how git works then this isn’t going to make sense and you should read that article I linked to earlier.

Git logs a history of changes. Each change is a commit and is stored as a snapshot of the codebase. Each commit links to the next to make this history sequenchial.

What is rebasing

Rebasing takes all the local commits and rewindes them; making it as though they never happened. Then, git pulls in all the remote changes. Then, git makes the remote HEAD the local HEAD, and then applies the local commits on top of the remote ones.

Why not to rebase?

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↑·3|✚ 1] 12:02 $ git commit sites/all/modules/custom/oen_custom/oen_custom.module -m “updated the comment form to use custom node for destination” [7.x-1.0.x 88ec2a1] updated the comment form to use custom node for destination 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+)

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↑·4|✔] 12:03 $ git status On branch 7.x-1.0.x Your branch is ahead of ‘origin/7.x-1.0.x’ by 4 commits. (use “git push” to publish your local commits) nothing to commit, working directory clean

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↑·4|✔] 12:03 $ git fetch

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↑·4|✔] 12:03 $ git fetch remote: Counting objects: 66, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (66/66), done. remote: Total 66 (delta 41), reused 0 (delta 0) Unpacking objects: 100% (66/66), done. From git.clarity-innovations.com:enetlearning/seed-pak ceffcba..ba7fc6f 7.x-1.0.x -> origin/7.x-1.0.x

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↓·5↑·4|✔] 12:26 $ git status On branch 7.x-1.0.x Your branch and ‘origin/7.x-1.0.x’ have diverged, and have 4 and 5 different commits each, respectively. (use “git pull” to merge the remote branch into yours) nothing to commit, working directory clean

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↓·5↑·4|✔] 12:26 $ git pull –rebase First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it… Applying: updated the comment preprocessor to remove the reply link Applying: added code to make the resource view not ajax Applying: commented out the typekit script Applying: updated the comment form to use custom node for destination

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↑·4|✔] 12:26 $ git status On branch 7.x-1.0.x Your branch is ahead of ‘origin/7.x-1.0.x’ by 4 commits. (use “git push” to publish your local commits) nothing to commit, working directory clean

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x ↑·4|✔] 12:26 $ git push Counting objects: 39, done. Delta compression using up to 4 threads. Compressing objects: 100% (39/39), done. Writing objects: 100% (39/39), 4.06 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done. Total 39 (delta 22), reused 0 (delta 0) To [email protected]:enetlearning/seed-pak.git ba7fc6f..120e66a 7.x-1.0.x -> 7.x-1.0.x

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x|✔] 12:26 $ git pull remote: Counting objects: 9, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done. remote: Total 9 (delta 5), reused 0 (delta 0) Unpacking objects: 100% (9/9), done. From git.clarity-innovations.com:enetlearning/seed-pak 120e66a..be4e779 7.x-1.0.x -> origin/7.x-1.0.x Updating 120e66a..be4e779 Fast-forward web/public/sites/all/modules/custom/resource_quiz/resource_quiz.field_group.inc | 0 1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) mode change 100644 => 100755 web/public/sites/all/modules/custom/resource_quiz/resource_quiz.field_group.inc

✔ ~/repos/clarity/client/enet/seed/project/build/web/public [7.x-1.0.x|✔] 12:28 $ git status On branch 7.x-1.0.x Your branch is up-to-date with ‘origin/7.x-1.0.x’. nothing to commit, working directory clean