Merge (with squash) all changes from another branch as a single commit

Solution 1:

Another option is git merge --squash <feature branch> then finally do a git commit.

From Git merge

--squash

--no-squash

Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge happened (except for the merge information), but do not actually make a commit or move the HEAD, nor record $GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD to cause the next git commit command to create a merge commit. This allows you to create a single commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the same as merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus).

Solution 2:

Found it! Merge command has a --squash option

git checkout master
git merge --squash WIP

at this point everything is merged, possibly conflicted, but not committed. So I can now:

git add .
git commit -m "Merged WIP"

Solution 3:

Try git rebase -i master on your feature branch. You can then change all but one 'pick' to 'squash' to combine the commits. See squashing commits with rebase

Finally, you can then do the merge from master branch.

Solution 4:

Using git merge --squash <feature branch> as the accepted answer suggests does the trick but it will not show the merged branch as actually merged.

Therefore an even better solution is to:

• Create a new branch from the latest master, commit in the master branch where the feature branch initiated.
• Merge <feature branch> into the above using git merge --squash
• Merge the newly created branch into master. This way, the feature branch will contain only one commit and the merge will be represented in a short and tidy illustration.

This wiki explains the procedure in detail.

In the following example, the left hand screenshot is the result of qgit and the right hand screenshot is the result of:

git log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit

Both screenshots show the same range of commits in the same repository. Nonetheless, the right one is more compact thanks to --squash.

• Over time, the master branch deviated from db.
• When the db feature was ready, a new branch called tag was created in the same commit of master that db has its root.
• From tag a git merge --squash db was performed and then all changes were staged and committed in a single commit.
• From master, tag got merged: git merge tag.
• The branch search is irrelevant and not merged in any way.

Solution 5:

2020 updated

With the --squash flag it looks like two parallel branches with no relation:

Sorting commits related to date looks like:

Personally, i don't like --squash option, try this trick, maybe it fits your needs, i use it for small projects:

1. git init
2. git checkout -b dev
3. Several commits in dev
4. After you did some great commits in dev(but not merged to master yet), if you do not want all commits copied to master branch, then make intentionally change something in master and (add some empty lines in README file and commit in master),
5. git merge dev It results merge conflict(empty lines in README), resolve it, commit with new message you want, and you are DONE. Here is the visual representation of it.

null commit for intentionally merge conflict, name it anything you prefer