How to rebase local branch onto remote master

Question

I have a cloned project from a master branch from remote repository remote_repo. I create a new branch and I commit to that branch. Other programmers pushed to remote_repo to the master branch.

I now need to rebase my local branch RB onto remote_repo's master branch.

How to do this? What commands to type to a terminal?

Solution 1

First fetch the new master from the upstream repository, then rebase your work branch on that:

git fetch origin            # Updates origin/master
git rebase origin/master    # Rebases current branch onto origin/master

Update: Please see Paul Draper's answer for a more concise way to do the same - recent Git versions provide a simpler way to do the equivalent of the above two commands.

Solution 2

git pull --rebase origin master

Solution 3

After committing changes to your branch, checkout master and pull it to get its latest changes from the repo:

git checkout master
git pull origin master

Then checkout your branch and rebase your changes on master:

git checkout RB
git rebase master

...or last two commands in one line:

git rebase master RB

When trying to push back to origin/RB, you'll probably get an error; if you're the only one working on RB, you can force push:

git push --force origin RB

...or as follows if you have git configured appropriately:

git push -f

Solution 4

Note: If you have broad knowledge already about rebase then use below one liner for fast rebase. Solution: Assuming you are on your working branch and you are the only person working on it.

git fetch && git rebase origin/master

Resolve any conflicts, test your code, commit and push new changes to remote branch.

                            ~:   For noobs   :~

The following steps might help anyone who are new to git rebase and wanted to do it without hassle

Step 1: Assuming that there are no commits and changes to be made on YourBranch at this point. We are visiting YourBranch.

git checkout YourBranch
git pull --rebase

What happened? Pulls all changes made by other developers working on your branch and rebases your changes on top of it.

Step 2: Resolve any conflicts that presents.

Step 3:

git checkout master
git pull --rebase

What happened? Pulls all the latest changes from remote master and rebases local master on remote master. I always keep remote master clean and release ready! And, prefer only to work on master or branches locally. I recommend in doing this until you gets a hand on git changes or commits. Note: This step is not needed if you are not maintaining local master, instead you can do a fetch and rebase remote master directly on local branch directly. As I mentioned in single step in the start.

Step 4: Resolve any conflicts that presents.

Step 5:

git checkout YourBranch
git rebase master

What happened? Rebase on master happens

Step 6: Resolve any conflicts, if there are conflicts. Use git rebase --continue to continue rebase after adding the resolved conflicts. At any time you can use git rebase --abort to abort the rebase.

Step 7:

git push --force-with-lease 

What happened? Pushing changes to your remote YourBranch. --force-with-lease will make sure whether there are any other incoming changes for YourBranch from other developers while you rebasing. This is super useful rather than force push. In case any incoming changes then fetch them to update your local YourBranch before pushing changes.

Why do I need to push changes? To rewrite the commit message in remote YourBranch after proper rebase or If there are any conflicts resolved? Then you need to push the changes you resolved in local repo to the remote repo of YourBranch

Yahoooo...! You are succesfully done with rebasing.

You might also be looking into doing:

git checkout master
git merge YourBranch

When and Why? Merge your branch into master if done with changes by you and other co-developers. Which makes YourBranch up-to-date with master when you wanted to work on same branch later.

                            ~:   (๑ơ ₃ ơ)♥ rebase   :~

Solution 5

Step 1:

git fetch origin

Step 2:

git rebase origin/master

Step 3:(Fix if any conflicts)

git add .

Step 4:

git rebase --continue

Step 5:

git push --force

View more solutions

Comments

[Glenn Lawrence]

For me this question is ambiguous as "with" could mean rebasing in either direction. Looking at the answers I see that the intent is to rebase your branch onto the remote master, not the other way around. I mention it in case somebody follows an answer below and gets the reverse of what they want.

[daniel kullmann]

@GlennLawrence I think it is better to edit the original question than to add a comment. This is also encouraged by stackoverflow. Besides, rebasing master onto RB will probably fail anyway, because RB depends on the history of master.

[kayaker243]

this is the only answer that actually does what was asked

[erik]

@kayaker243 No, it is the same as Paul Drapers answer but in long form, I think.

[Frerich Raabe]

@erik Note that Paul Draper wrote his answer about half a year after kayaker243's comment (and almost two years after this answer).

[Dror]

I get the following: Your branch and 'origin/b1' have diverged, # and have 3 and 2 different commits each, respectively. Seems like another git pull is needed. Is this correct or am I missing something here?

[Frerich Raabe]

@Dror No, there's no git pull needed. It means that since the last time you fetched from the origin repository, you did three commits. You later fetched again and git noticed that apparently other people did two commits since you last fetched. So now you can either rebase your branch on top of origin's branch (that's what this question is about and what my answer describes), or you can merge your local branch and the one from origin using git merge.

[Dror]

I started a follow up question here: superuser.com/questions/667146/…

[RGC]

- git rebase master # will do the same job as the second command? - after the two commands, my local master and RB has the same version of code, right? But i want master to be intact as remote master (without any RB commits)

[Frerich Raabe]

@RGC No, git rebase master will not do the same job as the second command (git rebase origin/master) since master and origin/master may well point to different commits (especially given that the first command was git fetch origin, which may modify origin/master).

[Paul Draper]

(Equivalent to Frerich's answer)

[Jimmy Huch]

isn't this slightly different than Frerich's answer, in that this will commit changes from origin master onto local master, whereas Frerich's answer leaves local master untouched? (pull vs. fetch)

[adhominem]

No, in Frerich's answer, the rebase modifies the local master. A pull --rebase is the same thing as a fetch followed by a rebase

[Joey Baruch]

when trying to push back to origin/RB, you'll probably get an error. If youre the only one working on RB, you can git push --force origin RB. source: stackoverflow.com/questions/8939977/…

[emmby]

FYI you can do interactive rebases with git pull --rebase=interactive origin master

[Yoshita Arora]

@FrerichRaabe I by chance just did git rebase origin and not git rebase origin/master. What will happen?

[jr.]

@adhominem - I checked the git-pull documentation, and I can't see anything that supports the claim that the local master is modified. If I'm on a branch named dev and run git pull --rebase origin master, only branch dev is going to be modified, not master. The --rebase flag documentation states that it attempts to rebase the current branch on top of the upstream branch after fetching and nothing about modifying local tracking branches.

[adhominem]

@studro I was assuming you were calling pull --rebase while on the local master. Otherwise, I would have been wrong.

[jr.]

Ahh right - that make sense. Thanks. I was just a little confused as I think the original question implies that they were on a local branch (RB I think they called it?) other than master.

[Andrew]

Is there a way to do an interactive rebase using this one liner?

[Gayan]

Is the origin here refered to an upstream repo or a fork?

[Frerich Raabe]

@reversiblean origin refers to any other Git repository.

[Gayan]

@FrerichRaabe say for example I have upstream (read-only) and origin (fork). Should I rebase over upstream or the origin?

[Motti Shneor]

Ah.... I have exactly this. my "RB" is rebased correctly, but I get endless errors when trying to push it after the rebase. Aside from push --force origin RB - is there a "nicer" (non forced) way to do it? I just try to understand gits perception here - and fail.

[Motti Shneor]

My problem is to later push my rebased feature-branch to remote. I get endless errors that I can't resolve. I usually give up - delete the remote branch and push it again from my local, but that's not very nice. Can you please elaborate just a little more on how to finalize the rebase by pushing it to remote?

[Motti Shneor]

My problem is to later push my rebased feature-branch to remote. I get endless errors which I fail to resolve. I usually give up, - delete the feature branch on the remote repo, then push it again from my local. That's not very nice. Could you please elaborate just a little more on how to finalize the rebase by pushing the feature-branch to remote?

[daniel kullmann]

@MottiShneor No, there is no nice way. If someone else pushes to the branch in the mean time, their changes will be lost! If you want to be nice to the git commit history, you should rather merge master into your branch, which is safe (you can do git push without -f).

[Qi Fan]

I got invalid upstream 'origin/master' when I tried Frerich's answer, but this answer works. I think it was because I only cloned a single branch.

[Dren]

And if you want to update the master branch then, without checking out to it, use: git fetch origin master:master

[Noitidart]

Doesn't git fetch update master without needing to check it out too? Except that git fetch doesn't git merge the updates right? So if we checkout master it won't have the latest updates. So isn't it shorter to do while on feature branch, git fetch then git rebase origin/master? We can't do git rebase master because that will try to rebase from master in workspace, we need origin/master to get from the unmerged but sitting in local.

[Vasilis Tsirimokos]

When I used the proposed 1 liner command from @PaulDraper I got: Your branch and 'origin/XXX' have diverged, and have 17 and 5 different commits each, respectively. (use "git pull" to merge the remote branch into yours) What does this mean exactly? Should I do a git pull?

[KeitelDOG]

I prefer this one because git fetch origin brings all remote branches, even incomplete ones, while I only need a specific branch. And a one-line is preferred

[John Little]

What is this for: "Pulls all the latest changes from master and rebases master on latest master.". Rebase master on master? Dont you just need to pull the latest master?

[aerijman]

@FrerichRaabe I understand that origin = remote_repo as if previously he could have done git remote add origin https://github.com/whoever/remote_repo.git?

[bh4r4th]

@JohnLittle Thanks for pointing out. I mean Pulls latest changes from remote master to local master. I always prefer keeping remote master clean and release ready always!. I will update my description.

[Suleka_28]

@FrerichRaabe I have the same issue. Are both of these commands run on the local branch or one on local master and the other on local branch?

[Frerich Raabe]

@Suleka_28 Both commands are run while having the same branch checked out: the branch which you want to rebase onto the remote master branch.

[Dave Liu]

I like the step-by-step nature of this answer. It helps break down what exactly is happening.

[Michael Iyke]

Thanks for this answer. Was really helpful to me and helped me to easily resolve my conflicts

[basickarl]

No explanation as to which branch to start on. Not a good answer.

[Jordi Nebot]

Please don't do this if you don't know exactly what is implies. Force pushing is not a good idea.

[slisnychyi]

!!! please don't do git push --force can be very very dangerous. datree.io/resources/git-push-force

[CpILL]

The git push --force-with-lease is the tricky bit and what nobody talks about when rebasing as you'll get a your branch is X ahead and Y behind origin which if you try to pull and push again will make a huge mess of things.

[Reaper]

Most of the answers including the highest rated one is force pushing. If you will not force push you will not have the history lined up properly over master or whatever the branch you are rebasing on.

[Mikhail Vasilyev]

Should've been git fetch origin master

[maverick]

Thanks for this answer. This has helped me a lot. A lot.

[Chris Parry]

git push --force-with-lease is a safer way to push changes after a rebase. It basically checks if another member of your team has made a commit before pushing your changes. See stackoverflow.com/questions/52823692/…

[Snowcrash]

For most modern repos you'll find you'll need to swap master for main.

[Tuomas Valtonen]

Thank you so much for the step 7, this always confused me in rebasing since you need to merge anyway in the end and the initial question is always "should i merge or rebase"! Also the push with --force-with-lease top stuff.