How to perform merge?

Question

I have a master branch and a feature branch. The feature branch has several changes but the master branch has many changes like removing 10 projects from the repository. The

Answer 1

I would rebase feature on top of master, then fast-forward feature on top of master

(with feature checkedout)

git rebase master

Answer 2

Don't do back merges. Integrate on an integration branch. Test completed branches on a release candidate branch. Only merge to master when you release a release candidate. You merge the release candidate that was deployed.

More on this here:

https://plus.google.com/109096274754593704906/posts/R4qkeyRadLR

UPDATE

I rewrote this here:

http://dymitruk.com/blog/2012/02/05/branch-per-feature/

Answer 3

Both result in same state for master. Its just that feature branch is brought to same state as master in first case and remains unaffected in second case.

If you are asking which one to do, then doing the first is preferred way. You should merge master "into" feature first, so that any bugs after merging do not affect the master. Keeps the master clean. This also ensures that there are no merge conflicts in the master ever.

This is my general practice: Merge master into any feature branch and check that everything works fine. If something is broken, fix it. Then merge the latest master again. Only after the merged branch seems good, that this is put into master.

Answer 4

checkout master
checkout -b develop (assuming you don't already have a develop branch)
merge --no-ff your-feature-branch

Resolve any conflicts in code. Test, test test.

checkout master
merge --no-ff develop

Then deploy your code.

I really like this branching model since it always keeps me building features on feature branches, doing final testing on develop. And only ever merging into master. No commits happen on master.