How to Rebase a Feature Branch

HOWTO Rebase a Feature Branch

Simple Recipe:

1. Don't do it!
2. Merge instead.

Detailed Recipe:

1. The Golden Rule of Rebase: Never rebase after you have shared the branch with others
   • It is far too easy to screw things up if you rebase on a "public" branch, i.e. one visible to others
   • If you have never pushed the feature branch, then it's okay to rebase
   • After you have shared, always do a merge, not a rebase
2. Update the master branch
   • git checkout master
   • git pull
3. Checkout the feature branch
   • git checkout feature1
4. Rebase
   • git rebase master feature1
5. Push
   • Be careful! The use of "--force" in the following push will over-write the remote tracking branch with the rebased version, so if other people are working on this feature branch, bad things will happen.
   • git push --force origin feature1