how to squash last two commits into a merge commit

Question

this is my git log history, I want to squash my last two commits into "merge release into feature" commit (which is a merge commit)

I tried with git rebase -i HEAD~3 and keep getting this error "cannot squash without a previous commit error"

commit 6a4fc (HEAD -> tasl-sq1)
Author: john
Date:   date

   show logo on landing page if they have one

commit dfa4fc
Author: James 
Date:   date

   update ui

commit 398ec03
Merge: efd12143ab c57bf64b81
Author: Tom
Date:   date

    merge release into feature 

commit dddfc 
Author: KAle
Date:   date

    API update

[j6t's answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/68347928/1256452) is *how to achieve this*, but I will add that the result is generally what people call an [evil merge](https://stackoverflow.com/q/1461909/1256452), which (correctly) suggests that you should be cautious about using this. — torek, Jul 13 '21 at 05:20

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 12 '21 at 13:08

3

In this situation it is a very simple matter of

git reset --soft 398ec03
git commit --amend

i.e., you go back to the merge commit without wiping the staged files nor the working tree, and then you amend the merge commit.

answered Jul 12 '21 at 13:08

j6t

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 12 '21 at 12:57

0

I know of a hacky way to do this :

reset (with reset --soft) to the first parent of the merge commit
create a file .git/MERGE_HEAD with the hash of the other commit to merge
run git commit

# move back to "before the merge", while keeping all the current content as staged
git reset --soft efd12143ab

# indicate to git 'I want to merge c57bf64b81'
echo c57bf64b81 >> .git/MERGE_HEAD

# commit
git commit

answered Jul 12 '21 at 12:57

LeGEC

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@j6t's answer is simpler than this one. I will leave my answer as I think the `MERGE_HEAD` indication may help in other situations. – LeGEC Jul 12 '21 at 13:58

how to squash last two commits into a merge commit

2 Answers2