pull_rebase_vs_merge.md

Using Rebase instead of Merge for pulls

Instead of doing a regular pull git pull => git fetch && git merge remotes/origin/BRANCH BRANCH

To avoid the all the merge commit messages you can run the following command instead git pull --rebase => git fetch && git rebase remotes/origin/BRANCH BRANCH

I actually have the following in my ~/.gitconfig file

[alias]
    up = !sh -c 'git pull --rebase --prune && git log --pretty=format:\"%Cred%ae %Creset- %C(yellow)%s %Creset(%ar)\" HEAD@{1}..'

So when I run 'git up' it does a pull and prints out a concisely what was pulled. I got it from Kyle Neath's gist

Difference between rebase and a merge

Simple answer

git pull
  does a merge of your master and the remotes/origin/master and creates a commit to capture the merge.
git pull --rebase 
  stashes your unpushed commits from master, fast-forwards the upstream changes from remotes/origin/master and then replays your stashed commits.

Verbose answer

GIT PULL (merge) Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "master":

             A---B---C master on origin
            /
       D---E---F---G master
   Then "git pull" will fetch and replay the changes from the remote master branch
   since it diverged from the local master (i.e., E) until its current commit (C)
   on top of master and record the result in a new commit along with the names of
   the two parent commits and a log message from the user describing the changes.

             A---B---C remotes/origin/master
            / \
       D---E---F---G---H master

GIT PULL (rebase) Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "topic":

             A---B---C master
            /
       D---E---F---G master on origin

   Then "git pull --rebase" will fetch, stash your local commits (A, B, C), fast-forward, and replay
   your stashed commits on top of master (as A', B', C') including recreating the commit messages.

                     A'--B'--C' master
                    /
       D---E---F---G master on origin