Preparing for Interactive Rebase

Before performing an interactive rebase, it's important to prepare your environment and keep certain considerations in mind to avoid conflicts and data loss.

Verifying the Commit History

It is crucial to first review the commit history to know exactly what changes have been made and in what order. You can do this using the following command:

bash

This command provides you with a graph of the commits in your repository, making it easier to visualize the history.

Ensure You Have a Backup

Before any operation that modifies the commit history, it is good practice to have a backup of the current branch. Use the following command to create a new branch from your current point of work:

bash

This new branch backup-branch will contain the original state of your work before performing the interactive rebase.

Considerations for Shared Branches

If you are working on a branch that other developers are also using, it is better to avoid using interactive rebase. Since rebase changes the commit history, other developers might face conflicts when synchronizing their work with the repository. It is preferable to use merge in these cases.

Resolving Previous Conflicts

Before starting an interactive rebase, make sure to resolve any conflicts that may exist in your current branch. Unresolved conflicts can complicate the rebase process.

Interactive Rebase Command

Once you are ready, you can initiate the interactive rebase by selecting the number of commits you want to include in the rebase. For example, to start an interactive rebase for the last 4 commits, use:

bash

This command will open the text editor with instructions for each commit, as we have seen in the previous topic.

Visual Resources

[Placeholder: Image showing the use of the git log --oneline --graph --decorate command to visualize the commit history]

[Placeholder: Image showing the creation of a backup branch with git checkout -b backup-branch]