Member-only story
Git Merge vs Rebase vs Squash
On Squash Merge and When to Use It
Git Weekly #34
Level: Intermediate 🥈
When it comes to version control systems, merging is an essential process. It allows developers to combine code changes made in different branches, ensuring that everyone is working with the latest and most up-to-date version of the codebase.
There are various methods of merging, with the three most commonly used being
- fast-forward merge,
- merging by creating a merge commit,
- and squash merge.
I wrote two other pieces mainly focusing on the first two:
In this article, we’ll focus on squash merge and compare it to the other two methods.
What is Squash Merge?
Main article: Git Commit Squash
Squashing is the act of consolidating multiple commits into a single commit in git. To learn more about manually squashing commits, please refer to this article.
Squash merge is a method of merging changes made in a feature branch into the main branch, resulting in a single, comprehensive commit that incorporates all of the changes.
Squash merge is effectively a squash and a fast-forward merge.
Benefits of Squash Merge
- Clean commit history — As mentioned earlier, squash merge results in a cleaner commit history. Rather than cluttering the commit log with a long list of individual commits, it consolidates everything into a single, meaningful commit message.
- Easier to review — With squash merge, reviewers can easily see all of the changes made in a feature branch by simply looking at the single commit message. This makes it easier to review and approve changes, particularly in larger codebases where multiple developers are working on different features.
- Prevents clutter — Squash merge can help prevent clutter in the main branch. Since all changes are consolidated…
