Git: Find the most recent common ancestor of two branches.

 

To find the most recent common ancestor (also known as the "merge base") of two branches in Git, you can use the git merge-base command. Here's how to do it with an example:

Suppose you have two branches, branch1 and branch2, and you want to find their most recent common ancestor:

bash

# Navigate to the Git repository where you have the branches
cd /path/to/your/repository

# Find the merge base of two branches (e.g., branch1 and branch2)
merge_base=$(git merge-base branch1 branch2)

# Print the hash of the merge base commit
echo "The merge base commit is: $merge_base"

In this example:

1. You navigate to your Git repository using the cd command.

2. You use the git merge-base command to find the merge base of branch1 and branch2. The merge-base command returns the commit hash of the most recent common ancestor between the two branches.

3. You store the commit hash in the merge_base variable.

4. Finally, you print the hash of the merge base commit to the console.

The $merge_base variable will contain the commit hash of the most recent common ancestor between branch1 and branch2. This is a crucial reference point when working with Git, especially during tasks like merging or rebasing branches, as it represents the starting point where the two branches diverged from each other.