Understanding Rebase and Its Impact on Commit History
When collaborating in Git, managing your commit history effectively is crucial for maintaining a clean, readable repository. Rebase is a powerful tool that helps achieve this by avoiding unnecessary merge commits.
The Problem with Unnecessary Merge Commits
When using git pull (without --rebase), Git merges the latest changes from the remote branch into your local branch. If there are new commits on the remote branch since your last pull, Git creates a merge commit even if there are no conflicts. For example:
- Remote branch has commits:
A -> B -> C - Your local branch has commits:
A -> B -> D -> E
After pulling the latest changes, Git creates a merge commit (M) to combine the histories:
