Merge commit creation in Git - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Merge Commit Creation

📖 Scenario: You are working on a project with two branches: main and feature. You want to combine the changes from the feature branch into main using a merge commit. This is a common task when multiple people work on different parts of a project.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to create a merge commit by merging the feature branch into the main branch using Git commands.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a new Git repository

Create an initial commit on the main branch

Create and switch to a branch called feature

Make a commit on the feature branch

Switch back to main branch

Merge the feature branch into main with a merge commit

Show the commit history to confirm the merge commit

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Merging branches with a merge commit is common when combining work from different team members or features in software projects.

💼 Career

Understanding merge commits is essential for collaboration in software development and version control workflows.

1

Initialize repository, create initial commit, and create feature branch

Initialize a new Git repository with git init. Create a file initial.txt with content This is the initial file. using echo "This is the initial file." > initial.txt. Add it with git add initial.txt and commit it with git commit -m "Initial commit". Then create and switch to a branch called feature using git checkout -b feature.

Git

# Initialize a new Git repository
# Create initial.txt with 'This is the initial file.', add it, and commit "Initial commit"
# Create and switch to feature branch
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git init to start a new repo. Use echo "This is the initial file." > initial.txt, then git add initial.txt and git commit -m "Initial commit". Finally, use git checkout -b feature to create and switch to the feature branch.

2

Create a commit on the feature branch

Create a new file called feature.txt with content This is a feature file. using echo "This is a feature file." > feature.txt. Add it to Git with git add feature.txt and commit it with the message "Add feature file" using git commit -m "Add feature file".

Git

git init
echo "This is the initial file." > initial.txt
git add initial.txt
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git checkout -b feature
# Create feature.txt, add it, and commit
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo "This is a feature file." > feature.txt to create the file. Then add and commit it with the exact commit message.

3

Switch back to main branch

Switch back to the main branch using git checkout main.

Git

git init
echo "This is the initial file." > initial.txt
git add initial.txt
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git checkout -b feature
echo "This is a feature file." > feature.txt
git add feature.txt
git commit -m "Add feature file"
# Switch to main branch
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git checkout main to switch branches.

4

Merge feature branch into main and show commit history

Merge the feature branch into main using git merge feature. Then show the commit history with git log --oneline --graph --all to confirm the merge commit.

Git

git init
echo "This is the initial file." > initial.txt
git add initial.txt
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git checkout -b feature
echo "This is a feature file." > feature.txt
git add feature.txt
git commit -m "Add feature file"
git checkout main
# Merge feature branch
# Show commit history
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git merge feature to merge. Then use git log --oneline --graph --all to see the merge commit in the history.