Merge branch to master with all changes?

Question

I sometimes find I'm working on a branch and I want to merge all changes from the branch into my master branch so that master is essential a clone of the branch I was just working with. Is there an easy way to update master so that all the changes from the branch are merged into the master. The behavior I am looking for is that master would become an exact clone of the branch. I usually merging individual conflicts one at a time into master, but is there an easier way to do this? Thanks for your time.

Thanks, this was precisely what I was looking for. – drbunsen May 27 '12 at 15:59 — drbunsen, May 27 '12 at 15:59

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:08

1

git reset --hard with the id of the commit you want to be your new master head should be your solution.

http://git-scm.com/2011/07/11/reset.html

EDIT : I'll flag it at duplicate : How to replace master branch in git, entirely, from another branch?

Look at the solution in the duplicate I mention. But depending on the desired result, the reset I suggested may be the solution.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:08

Community

1
1

answered May 27 '12 at 15:42

Denys Séguret

372,613
87
782
758

1

Keep in mind you'll lose all the commits you made in master that aren't also in the branch when you do this. (You can get back to them, but they won't be in a branch anymore.) – ellotheth May 27 '12 at 15:47
I thought this was the point. – Denys Séguret May 27 '12 at 15:48
Probably so. (I found the question a bit unclear; a "clone of the branch" would technically mean a separate copy.) – ellotheth May 27 '12 at 15:53
Clone was a poor choice of words. I was trying to indicate an exact version of the branch. – drbunsen May 27 '12 at 15:55

knittl · Answer 2 · 2018-06-27T21:40:59.550

1

If you want to keep history, use the ours merge strategy:

git checkout branch
git merge -s ours master

If you don't care about the history of your master branch, reset it:

git checkout master
git reset --hard branch

(This will discard all your local changes and makes master's commit unreachable!)

If you don't have any commits in master that are not in your branch, you can fast-forward master to your branch:

git checkout branch
git merge master
# or `git merge --ff-only master` to only allow fast-forward

edited Jun 27 '18 at 21:40

answered May 27 '12 at 15:48

knittl

246,190
53
318
364

The last example will merge master into branch, rather than the other way around, will it not? And should that flag have been `--ff-only`? – SpinUp __ A Davis Jun 27 '18 at 17:10
@spinup: yes, `--ff-only`, thanks for pointing that out :) as for the direction of the merge, the OP asked "[so] that master would become an exact clone of the branch" which is what the commands do – knittl Jun 27 '18 at 21:42

Merge branch to master with all changes?

2 Answers2