What is the process of combining changes in version control called?

The process of combining changes in version control is known as merging. When developers work on different branches of a codebase, they may make changes that need to be integrated into a single branch. The merging process takes the content from the various branches and combines them, resolving any conflicts that may arise if the same portions of the code were modified differently by different contributors.

Merging is integral to collaborative development because it helps maintain a coherent project structure, ensuring that all changes are brought together in a cohesive manner. This process allows teams to work independently on features or fixes while still being able to integrate their work.

In contrast, committing refers to saving changes to the version control system, while rebasing is a way of moving or combining a series of commits to a new base commit, which can help maintain a cleaner project history but does not literally combine the content itself like merging does. A snapshot is simply a saved state of a project at a particular point in time, not necessarily involving any merging of changes.