Rebase feature branch onto another feature branch

Question

I have two (private) feature branches that I'm working on.

a -- b -- c                  <-- Master
     \     \
      \     d -- e           <-- Branch1
       \
        f -- g               <-- Branch2

After working on these branches a little while I've discovered that I need the changes from Branch2 in Branch1. I'd like to rebase the changes in Branch2 onto Branch1. I'd like to end up with the following:

a -- b -- c                  <-- Master
           \
            d -- e -- f -- g <-- Branch1

I'm pretty sure I need to rebase the second branch onto the first, but I'm not entirely sure about the correct syntax and which branch I should have checked out.

Will this command produce the desired result?

(Branch1)$ git rebase --onto Branch1 Branch2

Answer 1

1. Switch to Branch2

    git checkout Branch2 

2. Apply the current (Branch2) changes on top of the Branch1 changes, staying in Branch2:

    git rebase Branch1 

Which would leave you with the desired result in Branch2:

a -- b -- c                      <-- Master
           \
            d -- e               <-- Branch1
           \
            d -- e -- f' -- g'   <-- Branch2

You can delete Branch1.

Answer 2

Note: if you were on Branch1 , you will with Git 2.0 (Q2 2014) be able to type:

git checkout Branch2
git rebase -

See commit 4f40740 by Brian Gesiak modocache :

rebase : allow " - " short-hand for the previous branch

Teach rebase the same shorthand as checkout and merge to name the branch to rebase the current branch on; that is, that " - " means "the branch we were previously on".

Answer 3

I know you asked to Rebase, but I'd Cherry-Pick the commits I wanted to move from Branch2 to Branch1 instead. That way, I wouldn't need to care about when which branch was created from master, and I'd have more control over the merging.

a -- b -- c                  <-- Master
     \     \
      \     d -- e -- f -- g <-- Branch1 (Cherry-Pick f & g)
       \
        f -- g               <-- Branch2