How to amend older Git commit

Question

I have made 3 git commits  but have not been pushed  How can I amend the older one  ddc6859af44  and  47175e84c  which is not the most recent one    git log commit f4074f289b8a49250b15a4f25ca4b46017454781 Date    Tue Jan 10 10 57 27 2012 -0800  commit ddc6859af448b8fd2e86dd0437c47b6014380a7f Date    Mon Jan 9 16 29 30 2012 -0800  commit 47175e84c2cb7e47520f7dde824718eae3624550 Date    Mon Jan 9 13 13 22 2012 -0800

User · Answer

In case the OP wants to squash the 2 commits specified into 1, here is an alternate way to do it without rebasing

git checkout HEAD^               # go to the first commit you want squashed
git reset --soft HEAD^           # go to the second one but keep the tree and index the same
git commit --amend -C HEAD@{1}   # use the message from first commit (omit this to change)
git checkout HEAD@{3} -- .       # get the tree from the commit you did not want to touch
git add -A                       # add everything
git commit -C HEAD@{3}           # commit again using the message from that commit

The @{N) syntax is handy to know as it will allow you to reference the history of where your references were. In this case it's HEAD which represents your current commit.

User · Answer

git rebase -i HEAD      Now mark the ones you want to amend with edit or e  replace pick   Now save and exit   Now make your changes  then  git add   git rebase --continue   If you want to add an extra delete remove the options from the commit command  If you want to adjust the message  omit just the --no-edit option

User · Answer

You could can use git rebase to rewrite the commit history  This can be potentially destructive to your changes  so use with care   First commit your  amend  change as a normal commit  Then do an interactive rebase starting on the parent of your oldest commit  git rebase -i 47175e84c2cb7e47520f7dde824718eae3624550    This will fire up your editor with all commits  Reorder them so your  amend  commit comes below the one you want to amend  Then replace the first word on the line with the  amend  commit with s which will combine  s quash  it with the commit before  Save and exit your editor and follow the instructions

User · Answer

I prepared my commit that I wanted to amend with an older one and was surprised to see that rebase -i complained that I have uncommitted changes  But I didn t want to make my changes again specifying edit option of the older commit  So the solution was pretty easy and straightforward    prepare your update to older commit  add it and commit git rebase -i  lt commit you want to amend gt   - notice the   so you see the said commit in the text editor you will get sometihng like this    pick 8c83e24 use substitution instead of separate subsystems file to avoid jgroups xml and jgroups-e2 xml going out of sync pick 799ce28 generate ec2 configuration out of subsystems-ha xml and subsystems-full-ha xml to avoid discrepancies pick e23d23a fix indentation of jgroups xml  now to combine e23d23a with 8c83e24 you can change line order and use squash like this    pick 8c83e24 use substitution instead of separate subsystems file to avoid jgroups xml and jgroups-e2 xml going out of sync     squash e23d23a fix indentation of jgroups xml pick 799ce28 generate ec2 configuration out of subsystems-ha xml and subsystems-full-ha xml to avoid discrepancies  write and exit the file  you will be present with an editor to merge the commit messages  Do so and save exit the text document You are done  your commits are amended   credit goes to  http   git-scm com book en Git-Tools-Rewriting-History There s also other useful demonstrated git magic

User · Answer

I ve used another way for a few times  In fact  it is a manual git rebase -i and it is useful when you want to rearrange several commits including squashing or splitting some of them  The main advantage is that you don t have to decide about every commit s destiny at a single moment  You ll also have all Git features available during the process unlike during a rebase  For example  you can display the log of both original and rewritten history at any time  or even do another rebase  I ll refer to the commits in the following way  so it s readable easily  C   good commit after a bad one B   bad commit A   good commit before a bad one  Your history in the beginning looks like this  x - A - B - C                           master   origin master  We ll recreate it to this way  x - A - B - C                            master   origin master  Procedure git checkout B         get working-tree to the state of commit B git reset --soft A     tell Git that we are working before commit B git checkout -b rewrite-history     switch to a new branch for alternative history  Improve your old commit using git add  git add -i  git stash etc   now  You can even split your old commit into two or more  git commit             recreate commit B  result   B   git cherry-pick C      copy C to our new branch  result   C    Intermediate result  x - A - B - C                            master                  B - C                            rewrite-history   origin master  Let s finish  git checkout master git reset --hard rewrite-history    make this branch master  Or using just one command  git branch -f master    make this place the new tip of the master branch  That s it  you can push your progress now  The last task is to delete the temporary branch  git branch -d rewrite-history

User · Answer

You can use git rebase --interactive  using the edit command on the commit you want to amend

[git] How to amend older Git commit?

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