Merge: When you perform a merge, you’re combining the changes from one branch into another. This creates a new commit on the target branch that has two parent commits: the previous commit from the target branch and the latest commit from the source branch. This results in a merge commit that captures the history of both branches.
Advantages of merging:
- Preserves the individual branch history.
- Clearly shows when and where the integration happened.
- Relatively simple and straightforward.
Disadvantages of merging:
- Can lead to a more cluttered commit history, especially in cases of frequent merges.
- Can result in “merge commits” that are not directly related to the actual work done.
Rebase: Rebasing involves moving the entire history of changes from one branch to another. It essentially rewrites the commit history of the source branch as if it had been based on the latest commit of the target branch. This results in a linear commit history without merge commits.
Advantages of rebasing:
- Results in a cleaner and linear commit history.
- Makes it easier to understand the sequence of changes, as there are no merge commits.
- Can help avoid unnecessary merge conflicts by incorporating the latest changes from the target branch before integrating.
Disadvantages of rebasing:
- Rewriting history can be risky if the branch is shared with others, as it creates new commit hashes.
- Can make collaboration and tracking changes more complex if not used carefully.
- Might require resolving conflicts during the rebase process.