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Q&A What's the correct way to merge a branch and its dependent branch back to master?

In git I branched feature-A from master. To reduce eventual merge conflicts later, I branched feature-B, which heavily overlaps and depends on A, from feature-A. A build of the feature-B branch s...

2 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  edited 2y ago by hkotsubo‭

#3: Post edited by user avatar hkotsubo‭ · 2022-01-10T14:01:26Z (over 2 years ago)
Adding relevant info from the comments
What's the correct way to merge a branch and its dependent branch back to master?
  • In `git` I branched feature-A from master. To reduce eventual merge conflicts later, I branched feature-B, which heavily overlaps and depends on A, from feature-A. A build of the feature-B branch shows both sets of changes, as expected. (There have been no further commits on feature-A after this branch.)
  • What is the best way to land both features back on master? If I just merge feature-B, will it bring along its feature-A baseline, or just the feature-B-specific changes? I think a branch is a set of commits and a commit is a set of deltas, so my concern is that merging feature-B to master would reflect only the work that is unique to feature-B, and without feature-A it would break. But my mental model of git might not be correct.
  • Alternatively, I could merge feature-A first and then feature-B. That seems safe, but I don't know if it's the best way.
  • A third approach would be to merge feature-B back into feature-A and then merge feature-A, which came from master originally, back to master. I'm reluctant to do that because that breaks the isolation between feature-A and feature-B; if in the future I need to backport feature-A but not feature-B, I'm not sure how I would do that.
  • Goals:
  • - feature-A and feature-B are both on master and arrive in that order (or together)
  • - it remains possible to backport feature-A without bringing along feature-B in the future (I do not have to support the reverse)
  • In `git` I branched feature-A from master. To reduce eventual merge conflicts later, I branched feature-B, which heavily overlaps and depends on A, from feature-A. A build of the feature-B branch shows both sets of changes, as expected. (There have been no further commits on feature-A after this branch.)
  • What is the best way to land both features back on master? If I just merge feature-B, will it bring along its feature-A baseline, or just the feature-B-specific changes? I think a branch is a set of commits and a commit is a set of deltas, so my concern is that merging feature-B to master would reflect only the work that is unique to feature-B, and without feature-A it would break. But my mental model of git might not be correct.
  • Alternatively, I could merge feature-A first and then feature-B. That seems safe, but I don't know if it's the best way.
  • A third approach would be to merge feature-B back into feature-A and then merge feature-A, which came from master originally, back to master. I'm reluctant to do that because that breaks the isolation between feature-A and feature-B; if in the future I need to backport feature-A but not feature-B, I'm not sure how I would do that.
  • Goals:
  • - feature-A and feature-B are both on master and arrive in that order (or together)
  • - it remains possible to backport feature-A without bringing along feature-B in the future (I do not have to support the reverse)
  • ---
  • In order to provide more details, that's what my repository looks like:
  • ```none
  • $ git log --graph --format="%ad %h [%p] %d"
  • Fri Jul 23 10:42:47 2021 -0400 725d9d1c11 [ca99f826dc] (HEAD -> feature/ct-comparisons-VER-75425, origin/feature/ct-comparisons-VER-75425)
  • Thu Jul 22 16:27:48 2021 -0400 ca99f826dc [6498847a48]
  • Thu Jul 22 11:05:17 2021 -0400 6498847a48 [9b2ddff48d] (origin/feature/null-rows-VER-74021-VER-75002, feature/null-rows-VER-74021-VER-75002)
  • Thu Jul 22 11:02:59 2021 -0400 9b2ddff48d [37329f2ec7]
  • ...
  • ```
  • `feature/null-rows-VER-74021-VER-75002` is branch A and `feature/ct-comparisons-VER-75425` is branch B, and I want to merge both to master.
#2: Post edited by user avatar Alexei‭ · 2021-07-24T15:44:50Z (over 2 years ago)
added relevant tags
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2021-07-23T18:06:46Z (over 2 years ago)
What's the correct way to merge a branch and its dependent branch back to master?
In `git` I branched feature-A from master.  To reduce eventual merge conflicts later, I branched feature-B, which heavily overlaps and depends on A, from feature-A.  A build of the feature-B branch shows both sets of changes, as expected.  (There have been no further commits on feature-A after this branch.)

What is the best way to land both features back on master?  If I just merge feature-B, will it bring along its feature-A baseline, or just the feature-B-specific changes?  I think a branch is a set of commits and a commit is a set of deltas, so my concern is that merging feature-B to master would reflect only the work that is unique to feature-B, and without feature-A it would break.  But my mental model of git might not be correct.

Alternatively, I could merge feature-A first and then feature-B.  That seems safe, but I don't know if it's the best way.

A third approach would be to merge feature-B back into feature-A and then merge feature-A, which came from master originally, back to master.  I'm reluctant to do that because that breaks the isolation between feature-A and feature-B; if in the future I need to backport feature-A but not feature-B, I'm not sure how I would do that.

Goals:
- feature-A and feature-B are both on master and arrive in that order (or together)
- it remains possible to backport feature-A without bringing along feature-B in the future (I do not have to support the reverse)

git