How to use Git Revert

Question

How is git revert used   This might sound like a duplicate question but when people ask it  the response is often  use git reset as per Revert to a commit by a SHA hash in Git   Then when someone asks how to use git reset people reply saying you should use git revert as per Git - how to rollback  Before you know it  8 different people appeared with their own unique ways to save the OP s ass  all of which is over your head   So lets try and stick the brief and write a Dummies Guide to git revert   A scenario  you ve committed twice to master and its bad  You ve pushed and other people have your bad changes   You want to undo it  It s not something you can hand-undo in code yourself  say some wizard or package manager changed tons of stuff all over the place - you just want to put it all back how it was   This is what source control is all about  I m sure its easy   Okay  you re going to use git revert but how   And after running git revert do you have to do something else after  Do you have to commit the changes revert made or does revert directly commit to the repo or what     Obviously you ll need to push again and probably announce your balls-up to the team

User · Answer

The question is quite old but revert is still confusing people (like me)

As a beginner, after some trial and error (more errors than trials) I've got an important point:

git revert requires the id of the commit you want to remove keeping it into your history
git reset requires the commit you want to keep, and will consequentially remove anything after that from history.

That is, if you use revert with the first commit id, you'll find yourself into an empty directory and an additional commit in history, while with reset your directory will be.. reverted back to the initial commit and your history will get as if the last commit(s) never happened.

To be even more clear, with a log like this:

# git log --oneline

cb76ee4 wrong
01b56c6 test
2e407ce first commit

Using git revert cb76ee4 will by default bring your files back to 01b56c6 and will add a further commit to your history:

8d4406b Revert "wrong"
cb76ee4 wrong
01b56c6 test
2e407ce first commit

git reset 01b56c6 will instead bring your files back to 01b56c6 and will clean up any other commit after that from your history :

01b56c6 test
2e407ce first commit

I know these are "the basis" but it was quite confusing for me, by running revert on first id ('first commit') I was expecting to find my initial files, it taken a while to understand, that if you need your files back as 'first commit' you need to use the next id.

User · Answer

Use git revert like so   git revert  lt insert bad commit hash here gt   git revert creates a new commit with the changes that are rolled back  git reset erases your git history instead of making a new commit    The steps after are the same as any other commit

User · Answer

git revert makes a new commit git revert simply creates a new commit that is the opposite of an existing commit  It leaves the files in the same state as if the commit that has been reverted never existed  For example  consider the following simple example    cd  tmp example   git init Initialized empty Git repository in  tmp example  git    echo  quot Initial text quot   gt  README md   git add README md   git commit -m  quot initial commit quot   master  root-commit  3f7522e  initial commit  1 file changed  1 insertion     create mode 100644 README md   echo  quot bad update quot   gt  README md    git commit -am  quot bad update quot   master a1b9870  bad update  1 file changed  1 insertion     1 deletion -   In this example the commit history has two commits and the last one is a mistake  Using git revert    git revert HEAD  master 1db4eeb  Revert  quot bad update quot   1 file changed  1 insertion     1 deletion -   There will be 3 commits in the log    git log --oneline 1db4eeb Revert  quot bad update quot  a1b9870 bad update 3f7522e initial commit  So there is a consistent history of what has happened  yet the files are as if the bad update never occured  cat README md  Initial text  It doesn t matter where in the history the commit to be reverted is  in the above example  the last commit is reverted - any commit can be reverted   Closing questions  do you have to do something else after   A git revert is just another commit  so e g  push to the remote so that other users can pull fetch merge the changes and you re done   Do you have to commit the changes revert made or does revert directly commit to the repo   git revert is a commit - there are no extra steps assuming reverting a single commit is what you wanted to do   Obviously you ll need to push again and probably announce to the team   Indeed - if the remote is in an unstable state - communicating to the rest of the team that they need to pull to get the fix  the reverting commit  would be the right thing to do

User · Answer

I reverted back a few commits by running  git revert commit id  such as   git revert b2cb7c248d416409f8eb42b561cbff91b0601712   Then i was prompted to commit the revert  just as you would when running  git commit    My default terminal program is Vim so i ran    wq    Finally i pushed the change to the repository with   git push

User · Answer

The reason reset and revert tend to come up a lot in the same conversations is because different version control systems use them to mean different things   In particular  people who are used to SVN or P4 who want to throw away uncommitted changes to a file will often reach for revert before being told that they actually want reset   Similarly  the revert equivalent in other VCSes is often called rollback or something similar - but  rollback  can also mean  I want to completely discard the last few commits   which is appropriate for reset but not revert  So  there s a lot of confusion where people know what they want to do  but aren t clear on which command they should be using for it   As for your actual questions about revert        Okay  you re going to use git revert but how    git revert first-bad-commit  last-bad-commit     And after running git revert do you have to do something else after  Do you have to commit the changes revert made or does revert directly commit to the repo or what     By default  git revert prompts you for a commit message and then commits the results  This can be overridden  I quote the man page      --edit      With this option  git revert will let you edit the commit message prior to committing the revert  This is the default if you run the command from a terminal       --no-commit      Usually the command automatically creates some commits with commit log messages stating which commits were reverted  This flag applies the changes necessary to revert the named commits to your working tree and the index  but does not make the commits  In addition  when this option is used  your index does not have to match the HEAD commit  The revert is done against the beginning state of your index       This is useful when reverting more than one commits  effect to your index in a row    In particular  by default it creates a new commit for each commit you re reverting  You can use revert --no-commit to create changes reverting all of them without committing those changes as individual commits  then commit at your leisure

[git] How to use Git Revert

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