Combining multiple commits before pushing in Git
I have a bunch of commits on my local repository which are thematically similar. I'd like to combine them into a single commit before pushing up to a remote. How do I do it? I think rebase does this, but I can't make sense of the docs.
Answer
What you want to do is referred to as "squashing" in git. There are lots of options when you're doing this (too many?) but if you just want to merge all of your unpushed commits into a single commit, do this:
git rebase -i origin/master
This will bring up your text editor (-i is for "interactive") with a file that looks like this:
pick 16b5fcc Code in, tests not passing
pick c964dea Getting closer
pick 06cf8ee Something changed
pick 396b4a3 Tests pass
pick 9be7fdb Better comments
pick 7dba9cb All done
Change all the pick to squash (or s) except the first one:
pick 16b5fcc Code in, tests not passing
squash c964dea Getting closer
squash 06cf8ee Something changed
squash 396b4a3 Tests pass
squash 9be7fdb Better comments
squash 7dba9cb All done
Save your file and exit your editor. Then another text editor will open to let you combine the commit messages from all of the commits into one big commit message.
Voila! Googling "git squashing" will give you explanations of all the other options available.