What is the difference between a fast-forwarded git merge and a git rebase? Don't both accomplish keeping history linear and no merge commits? If so, why would one use one over the other? If not, which is what I think is true, what is the whole story that I'm not seeing?

Thanks!

CodePudding user response：

When you are ahead of master, both do the same thing.

If you're ahead and behind master, then a fast-forward merge isn't possible, since there are newer commits on master. But in that case, you can rebase, creating new commits based on the commits that are ahead of master.