Squash all your commits in one, before a pull request in github

Question

I need to put all my commits in a single one called initial snapshot, in order to release it in a github Repo, I know that for doing this I follow this

My first question is that I want to share it with a external repository and this say:

A word of caution: Only do this on commits that haven’t been pushed an external repository. If others have based work off of the commits that you’re going to delete, plenty of conflicts can occur. Just don’t rewrite your history if it’s been shared with others.

and what happens I want to put all my commits in a single one, how to do this:

I found also this:

# Switch to the master branch and make sure you are up to date.
git checkout master
git fetch # this may be necessary (depending on your git config) to receive updates on origin/master
git pull

# Merge the feature branch into the master branch.
git merge feature_branch

# Reset the master branch to origin's state.
git reset origin/master

# Git now considers all changes as unstaged changes.
# We can add these changes as one commit.
# Adding . will also add untracked files.
git add --all
git commit

but nothing happens:

$ git reset  origin/master
$ git add --all
$ git commit -m "initial snapshot"
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
nothing to commit, working directory clean

Answer 1

The easiest way to do that is by using rebase command.

Imagine you have this repository:

$> git log --oneline
af28aeb Another test
a680317 Try something
d93792b Edit both files
f23cdbd Second commit add b
6f456bc First commit add a

So you have done some test with commits af28aeb Another test and a680317 Try something. We want to squash them after d93792b Edit both files to clean the repository.

To do that the command will be git rebase -i d93792b

Where -i is to indicate to enter in interactive mode and d93792b is the commit hash where we want to absorbe the previous one.

Note: in case you want to squash all your commits like the first one, you have to use git rebase --root -i

That command will show you that:

pick a680317 Try something
pick af28aeb Another test

# Rebase d93792b..af28aeb onto d93792b (       2 TODO item(s))
#
# Commands:
# p, pick = use commit
# r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
# f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
# x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
#
# If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST.
#
# However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted.
#
# Note that empty commits are commented out

You have to tell to rebase command what you want to do. In that case, I suggest you to reword the first commit and squash the second as follow:

reword a680317 Try something
squash af28aeb Another test

# Rebase d93792b..af28aeb onto d93792b (       2 TODO item(s))
#
# Commands:
# p, pick = use commit
# r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
# f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
# x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
#
# If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST.
#
# However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted.
#
# Note that empty commits are commented out

Then your text edit will be opened to set the new commit message.

Fix bug

# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
#
# Date:      Tue Jul 28 08:40:04 2015 +0200
#
# rebase in progress; onto d93792b
# You are currently editing a commit while rebasing branch 'master' on 'd93792b'.
#
# Changes to be committed:
#       new file:   c
#

Now you have to git commit --amend and git rebase --continue to finish the process.

And your repository will show like this:

$> git log --oneline
5f98806 Fix bug
d93792b Edit both files
f23cdbd Second commit add b
6f456bc First commit add a