Merging one change to multiple branches in Git

Question

I am used to having one main branch (master) and working in topic branches. But I'm working on a project now with two main branches (master and experimental) and I am unsure how to best merge my topic branch into both?

Is this the right way to do it? If not can someone let me know the right way.

(master)$ git checkout -b bugfix # do bug fix here (bugfix)$ git commit -a -m 'Fixed bug.' (bugfix)$ git checkout master (master)$ git merge bugfix  (master)$ git checkout bugfix (bugfix)$ git rebase experimental (bugfix)$ git checkout experimental (experimental)$ git merge bugfix 

Thank you.

Answer 1

Don't do the rebase and you're set. Simply merge your bugfix branch into each branch you need it

(master)$ git checkout -b bugfix # do bug fix here (bugfix)$ git commit -a -m 'Fixed bug.' (bugfix)$ git checkout master (master)$ git merge bugfix  (bugfix)$ git checkout experimental (experimental)$ git merge bugfix 

When doing the rebase you are creating a commit similar to the already merged commit, but different. Doing the rebase followed by checkout+merge is essentially equivalent to cherry-picking the bug fixing commit.