rebase conflicted, merged commits in git

Question

I have just finished developing a new feature on its own branch (branch feature) consisting of a dozen or so commits. After running all my tests, I merged this branch into master and resolved many merge conflicts. The process took quite awhile. Only after I finished merging do I realize that I never rebased any of the commits in the feature branch, which is generally my practice.

In short, now I have:

(feature)   B-C-D
(master) A-/     \-E (merge commit in master)

but I want to have:

   F
A-/ \-D

where F = B + C + D "squashed" together.

The way I was going about this was to create another branch master_prime from master starting at commit A. Then, switch to the feature branch and accomplish all the commit squashing I want. Finally, merge feature into master_prime. The only issue is that I'll have to resolve all the merge conflicts again. Is there a way I can replay/pick out the merge commit E so that this isn't necessary?

I have also attempted git rebase --preserve-merges -i <A> as well as git rebase -i <A>, which don't allow me to rebase the commits I want or make me deal with merge conflicts again, respectively.

Can you elaborate on what about git rebase --preserve-merges -i <A> isn't working for you? I was able to run that exact command and have B, C, D, and E available for rebase operations. — joshtkling
– joshtkling, Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 22:10

user3426575 · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-16 19:40:55Z

1

Use git read-tree to reuse your resolution of the merge conflicts.

I'm assuming you merged feature into master. If you merged master into feature, use master^2 instead of master^ (and vice versa).

Make a backup of your merge commit.
```
git branch merge-backup master
```
Squash the commits in feature. Make sure you don't accidentally change anything.
```
git checkout feature
# ... squash the commits ...
git diff master^2
```

Get rid of the old merge commit.

git checkout master
git reset --hard master^

Merge the squashed feature branch into master, reusing your old conflict resolution.
```
git merge feature
git read-tree --reset -u merge-backup
git commit
```
If you are pleased with the results, delete the backup branch.
```
git branch -D merge-backup
```

answered Mar 16, 2014 at 19:40

user3426575

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Comments

Wes Hardaker · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-25 22:34:21Z

I think there are probably a number of ways to accomplish what you want, but a couple of things first:

1) you don't need a new master branch if you don't want to. You can use git reset to change the point of the current master branch back to A or something without needing a newly named branch. (you can also create your new master_prime, do what you want to get it to "the best place on earth" and the rename master to master_old and rename master_prime to master.

But that's all besides the point because it's not really what you're asking.

What you want is feature branch feature with all the needed changes from A to D in it. And... the changes required to make the merge. At this point you probably want to rebase, as that will still be a pain. But you can do your squashing and copy your merge edits into place (using reset instead of a new branch left as an exercise to the reader):

git checkout A
git checkout -b feature2
git cherry-pick B..D
... squash away here ...
git cherry-pick E              # copies the merge pain in
git checkout master
git merge feature2

I think

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