How do I squash all commits without losing submodules?

Question

I like the answers from How to squash all git commits into one?.

However, I get merge conflicts if I:

git rebase --root -i

with pick and squash as suggested.

And, I lose my submodules (I have 5), when I

rm -rf .git
git init
git add .

What is the most effective way to squash all history and keep my submodules in their current directories at their current sha.

Unlawful

Answer 1

Try git reset --soft SHAOFFIRSTCOMMIT and then git commit --amend

The first command resets the current branch to the first commit, but keeps the current index and the second command commits the current index in the last commit.

Monogenic

No, git reset --mixed resets the index. (--mixed is the default, by the way.) --soft is the option to leave the index as it is. – Billings

but iirc mixed also does the job innthis case, right? – Monogenic

No, in general, it doesn't. After git reset --mixed, you'd have to worry about re-updating your index to the exact state it was in before you executed git reset, and that's not necessarily trivial. – Billings

This is brilliant. I guess this would preserve peoples branches too. – Unlawful