As the subject says, these two commands give identical behaviour: git rebase --interactive --keep-empty --root and: git rebase --interactive --root I.e. --keep-empty has no effect when --root is specified. Ideas for workaround welcome. Regards -- Pierre Ossman Software Development Cendio AB https://cendio.com Teknikringen 8 https://twitter.com/ThinLinc 583 30 Linköping https://facebook.com/ThinLinc Phone: +46-13-214600 https://plus.google.com/+CendioThinLinc A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?