Rebase on github branch

Question

Say I do the following steps:

• fork some project, create a topic branch
• push that branch over at GitHub
• request a pull from that branch to the original project

However, I get some comments to improve stuff on the code.

• I fix up the code, do a commit
• Rebase to squash old commits

Problem is, I can't push it anymore to the topic branch over at GitHub.

What's the best way of handling this then?

Answer 1

Once rebased, you cannot just add new commits on the forked repo (since you have replayed those commits during the rebase, rewriting their SHA1), you have to force your push:

git push -f

And then re-do your pull request.

This is ok since nobody has yet cloned your repo and started to used your branch.

If that branch was already used, follow that blog post:

Important: If you've already pushed commits to GitHub, and then squash them locally, you will not be able to push that same branch to GitHub again.
Create a new branch--like 100-retweet-bug-squashed or 100-retweet-bug-rc1 (for release candidate 1)--and squash your commits there.
Once everything is squashed and ready, push the new squashed branch to GitHub and send your pull request to Gina.