Explain what the command interactive rebase means in version control systems like Git and how it is used to edit commit history.

The git rebase -i (interactive rebase) command allows you to interactively modify the commit history in a branch. With it, you can:

• Change the order of commits
• Combine multiple commits into one (squash)
• Edit commit messages
• Remove unnecessary commits
• Split a commit into several

When executing git rebase -i <base>, Git opens a text editor with a list of commits starting from the specified base. The user can edit commands before each commit (pick, squash, edit, etc.) to modify the history.

Example usage:

# Start an interactive rebase for the last 3 commits
git rebase -i HEAD~3

In the opened editor, you can replace pick with squash to merge commits or edit to change the commit content.

This is useful for cleaning up the history before publishing a branch, making it more readable and logical.