Git: merge branch excluding last commit

Question

The common case is to merge a branch up to its last commit:

      A---B---C topic
     /         \
D---E---F---G---H master

But I wanted to exclude the last commit, like this:

        A---B---C topic
       /     \
  D---E---F---G  master

Is it possible to merge the topic branch into master without including topic's last commit?

git-scm.com/docs/git-merge Also, why do you have two commits with the same name? — Qantas 94 Heavy
– Qantas 94 Heavy, Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 2:41
Impossible to tell what you're asking. Do you mean you want to merge C into master without moving the branch pointer topic? What does D have to do with anything? You might have better luck if you show us before/after diagrams of what you're trying to do. Also, it's "please", not "pls". — user229044
– user229044 ♦, Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 2:52
Wait, your "after" diagram has suddenly lost commit "H". What happened to it? Was that intentional? — user229044
– user229044 ♦, Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 3:05

Renato Zannon · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-08 03:05:44Z

12

When merging, you don't need to say a branch name, you just need a commit reference.

Assuming B is the penultimate commit on the branch topic, you could do:

git checkout master
git merge topic~

Where the ~ means "the commit before". You can learn more about how to reference commits with man gitrevisions.

As an alternative, you could provide the SHA1 of the commit B directly.

answered Dec 8, 2013 at 3:05

Renato Zannon

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3 Comments

kangear Over a year ago

git merge topic~${n} can do it. 但是如何根据SHA1来指定合并到指定的提交。

Echoes Over a year ago

Is this answer still correct in 2021? Or do we use cherry-pick instead?

Renato Zannon Over a year ago

@Echoes cherry-pick <branch-name> does the opposite of what was discussed in this case (only gets the last commit). If you mean cherry-pick <penultimate-commit-sha1> instead then it does a different thing - it only gets that commit, not the whole tree. Might be what you want, but the question had a different context

user229044 · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-08 03:03:24Z

4

i mean "merge B into master without C". – kangear 1 min ago

Then just do exactly that. Merge B into master. It's completely valid to merge by commit ID rather than by branch name:

$ git checkout master
$ git merge B

answered Dec 8, 2013 at 3:03

user229044♦

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