How to “rebase” a single commit?

Question

Consider the following tree:

A --- B --- C --- D --- E --- F --- master
 \
  \
    B' --- C' --- D' --- topic

where (B != B') . I would like to do git rebase --onto master master topic but this generates conflicts. But the situation is simpler: I would like to put the single topic commit onto master.

git checkout master
git cherry-pick topic
git checkout topic
git reset --hard master
git checkout master
git reset --hard HEAD~1

Isn't it possible to do with a single command the commands above?

Answer 1

Reset your branch first, then use the reflog to find the commit to cherry pick:

git checkout -B topic master # re-create topic branch at the commit of master
git cherry-pick topic@{1} # copy the old tip of the topic branch

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Another – maybe even simpler – way would be to pass rebase a range of commits which only consists of the single commit you want to have rebased:

git rebase --onto master topic^ topic