How to use git merge --squash?

Question

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)?

Answer 1

Say your bug fix branch is called bugfix and you want to merge it into master:

git checkout master
git merge --squash bugfix
git commit

This will take all the commits from the bugfix branch, squash them into 1 commit, and merge it with your master branch.

---

Explanation:

git checkout master

Switches to your master branch.

git merge --squash bugfix

Takes all the commits from the bugfix branch and merges it with your current branch.

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.

Answer 2

What finally cleared this up for me was a comment showing that:

git checkout main
git merge --squash feature

is the equivalent of doing:

git checkout feature
git diff main > feature.patch
git checkout main
patch -p1 < feature.patch
git add .

When I want to merge a feature branch with 105(!!) commits and have them all squashed into one, I don't want to git rebase -i origin/master because I need to separately resolve merge conflicts for each of the intermediate commits (or at least the ones which git can't figure out itself). Using git 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.

Answer 3

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 feature1
git rebase -i master

Squash into one commit then repeat for the other features.

git checkout master
git merge feature1 feature2 feature3 ...

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

Hope this helps

Answer 4

If you have already git merge bugfix on main, you can squash your merge commit into one with:

git reset --soft HEAD^1
git commit

Answer 5

Merge newFeature branch into master 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 the newFeature branch commits, which you can customize.

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

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

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. Marge 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
   

Answer 8

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).