What is the best way to merge a branch into master AND another branch?

Question

Context :

I have created a branch (let's call it new-feature ), based off master . I plan to create a pull request that will remain open over the next few months.

During this time, I will be doing feature development by branching off of new-feature . Once a branch has been reviewed and approved, I will create a pull request to merge that bit of work into new-feature

When all is said and done, new-feature will be merged into master .

My question :

Let's say one of my new-feature child branches (let's call it child-branch-1 ) contains a change that also needs to be merged into master BEFORE new-feature is merged into master ?

Am I able to use a single branch for this change, creating 2 separate pull requests (1 PR to merge the change into master , and another PR to merge the change into new-feature , respectively), or is it better to use 2 different branches (1 based off of master , and 1 based off of new-feature , with a PR for each) to accomplish this?

Answer 1

Let's say one of my new-feature child branches (let's call it child-branch-1 ) contains a change that also needs to be merged into master BEFORE new-feature is merged into master ?

That branch child-branch-1 includes the history (in part) of new-feature .

You cannot merge child-branch-1 as-is to master, because it includes too much.

• make a new branch from upstream/master (with upstream being the remote of the original repository you have forked)
• git cherry-pick one or several commits from child-branch-1 to that new branch
• make a separate PR from the new branch which, again, only includes the commits relevant to your "urgent" change.

Answer 2

I would firstly merge child-branch-1 to master. Once I did that, I would then make a pull from master to new-feature that way you'd have the change you need in new-feature and the children of such branch would have the change too.

Since you need to have child-branch-1 in master before you put it in new-feature , I think it's better to get child-branch-1 from master instead of taking it from new-feature .

I'm speaking about this thinking of it as a simple general case, your personal case may be more complicated though. It may be possible that you need some things from child-branch-1 to go to master, and some other things to go to new-feature . If that's case, I would use another approach, maybe you can tell us a few more details about your issue.