What does git rebase do?

Question

Good evening guys, I am having trouble with the command "git rebase" although I have been messing around with it on the https://learngitbranching.js.org website for an hour now. Does it copy a commit from one branch to another? If it does, then what is the difference between "git rebase" and "git cherry-pick". Can someone please explain this to me?

Answer 1

git rebase replays a series of commits from one branch onto another, effectively aligning the branch with a new base while rewriting commit history to make it linear. For example, git rebase main on a feature branch moves the feature onto main and reapplies its commits on top of the latest changes in main. In contrast, git cherry-pick applies specific commits (identified by their hash) from one branch to another without altering history. While rebase is used for integrating and aligning branches, cherry-pick is ideal for selectively copying individual commits.

Comments

Thank you so much Zekarias

Answer 2

git rebase moves or replays your branch's commits onto another branch's tip, creating a linear history. It's useful for keeping a clean project history and integrating changes without a merge commit.