When should you use the git merge command and in which situations is it preferable to use git rebase?

git merge and git rebase are both used to integrate changes from one branch into another, but they are used in different situations:

• git merge creates a new merge commit, preserving the branch history. This is convenient when transparency of history is important and you want to keep the context of multiple developers' work.

• git rebase "rewrites" history by moving your commits on top of another branch. This makes the history linear and cleaner, but changes commit hashes.

When to use:

• Use merge if you want to preserve branch history and are okay with additional merge commits. This is the standard way to combine branches in team work.

• Use rebase for local changes before pushing to a shared repository, to make the history cleaner and avoid unnecessary merge commits.

Important: do not rebase public branches that are already accessible to others to avoid conflicts.

Example:

# Merging feature branch into main
git checkout main
git merge feature

# Rebase feature branch onto main
git checkout feature
git rebase main