Undo in Git: How to fix common mistakes

#git #productivity #webdev #beginners

Occasionally, perhaps not all that occasionally, you might make a mistake in your commit workflow. You forgot to fix a lint error, your tests didn't pass so you need to fix that first, or you forgot to add a file, maybe you weren't ready for that commit just yet, maybe you didn't mean to push yet. Whatever the case may be, mistakes happen and you need a way to undo whatever those mistakes were. Here are a few easy workflows you can follow when these mistakes happen.

How to make a change to the previous commit

Let's say you have some code you want to add when you make your first commit. So you type git status and:

nyxtom@enceladus: git status
On branch master

No commits yet

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
        index.css
        index.html
        load.js
        load2.js

nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

You go ahead and add these files with git add.

nyxtom@enceladus$ git add index.css index.html load.js
~/libvar/map
nyxtom@enceladus$ git status
On branch master

No commits yet

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git rm --cached <file>..." to unstage)
        new file:   index.css
        new file:   index.html
        new file:   load.js

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
        load2.js

~/libvar/map
nyxtom@enceladus$ git commit -m 'Adding initial project'
[master (root-commit) 9e5fc8f2] Adding initial project
 3 files changed, 187 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 index.css
 create mode 100644 index.html
 create mode 100644 load.js

But whoops! Turns out there was a problem in your previous commit. You want to change a line of code. So you make your change to the file and use git add -p

nyxtom@enceladus$ git add -p
diff --git a/load.js b/load.js
index 888a7fbd..f0cc06b3 100644
--- a/load.js
+++ b/load.js
@@ -28,6 +28,8 @@ function setup() {
     let text = [''];

     function draw() {
+        context.clearRect(0, 0, window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
+
         let offset = 100;
         let tokens = parse(text);
         tokens.forEach(token => {
(1/1) Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,e,?]? y

Instead of making another commit, you can just amend the previous commit! Use git commit --amend.

nyxtom@enceladus$ git commit --amend -m 'Adding initial project'
[master 5923dfe9] Adding initial project
 Date: Fri Aug 28 11:40:45 2020 -0500
 3 files changed, 188 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 index.css
 create mode 100644 index.html
 create mode 100644 load.js

Great! Now we have fixed that last commit with this change!

How to reset a commit

Now let's say you forgot to add a file, so you go ahead and make another commit like so:

nyxtom@enceladus$ git add load2.js
~/libvar/map (master)+
nyxtom@enceladus$ st
On branch master
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
        new file:   load2.js

~/libvar/map (master)+
nyxtom@enceladus$ git commit -m 'Test'
[master a1bf0355] Test
 1 file changed, 147 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 load2.js

But let's say you don't want that commit yet. Have you run git push yet? No? Okay great. You can unstage the last commit at HEAD with the following: git reset --soft

nyxtom@enceladus$ git reset --soft HEAD^
~/libvar/map (master)+
nyxtom@enceladus$ st
On branch master
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
        new file:   load.js

Now the previous commit is still staged. Meaning it's ready to be committed again. If you want to unstage it go ahead and type git restore --staged <file>

How to rebase and squash commits

Let's say you made a few commits like the one below.

nyxtom@enceladus$ git log --oneline
9f44611c (HEAD -> master) Fix tests
2dd82c2b Better comments
5171bfac Fix spacing
ffda820e [#3203] Fixes input validation prior to user api requests

You realize that the last 3 commits actually belong to the original bug fix commit. Fear not! You can use git rebase for this. Let's rebase the last 4 commits.

nyxtom@enceladus$ git rebase -i HEAD~4

You'll notice that when you rebase with -i it is doing so interactively. This means that changes you make in this mode can be done a commit at a time (provided that you are making changes to multiple commits). The editor that pops up will provide you with some options like below:

pick ffda820e [#3203] Fixes input validation prior to user api requests
pick 5171bfac Fix spacing
pick 2dd82c2b Better comments
pick 9f44611c Fix tests

# Rebase 5923dfe9..9f44611c onto 9f44611c (4 commands)
#
# Commands:
# p, pick <commit> = use commit
# r, reword <commit> = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit <commit> = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash <commit> = use commit, but meld into previous commit
# f, fixup <commit> = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
# x, exec <command> = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
# b, break = stop here (continue rebase later with 'git rebase --continue')
# d, drop <commit> = remove commit
# l, label <label> = label current HEAD with a name
# t, reset <label> = reset HEAD to a label
# m, merge [-C <commit> | -c <commit>] <label> [# <oneline>]
# .       create a merge commit using the original merge commit's
# .       message (or the oneline, if no original merge commit was
# .       specified). Use -c <commit> to reword the commit message.
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
#
# If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST.
#
# However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted.
#

Since we are concerned with merging the last 3 commits into the first one, we can change all those pick to fixup. This will "squash" the commit into the next one in the history and ignore that log message. There are a number of options you can choose from here so I suggest looking through each in detail.

pick ffda820e [#3203] Fixes input validation prior to user api requests
fixup 5171bfac Fix spacing
fixup 2dd82c2b Better comments
fixup 9f44611c Fix tests

My built-in editor is vim so when I type :wq the rebase will finish and the following is output to the terminal.

Successfully rebased and updated refs/heads/master.

Great! Now type git log --oneline and you should only see a single commit!

nyxtom@enceladus$ git log --oneline
40122c65 (HEAD -> master) [#3203] Fixes input validation prior to user api requests

How to rebase and then push those changes again

Let's say you are working on a branch for a pull request and you already pushed to the remote branch with git push. You made some changes, undid the commit history with git rebase. Unfortunately, now your commit tree is out of sync with the remote commit history. Well you can always git push --force. This will force the remote history to match your current history.

What happens if someone else has made remote changes? You can actually run --force-with-lease to ensure you don't override someone else's changes. It's not very well know, but it's definitely useful!

How to undo a git rebase

Let's say you messed up your rebase and you need to fix what you did and get back to a previous state. Commits are never really lost in git so you can use git reflog to take a look at the commit history prior to the rebase.

nyxtom@enceladus$ git reflog
40122c65 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{0}: checkout: moving from 8115f1e263eeeee4bf8f75e90bbb6cca1a78cfbe to master
8115f1e2 HEAD@{1}: checkout: moving from master to 8115f1e263eeeee4bf8f75e90bbb6cca1a78cfbe
40122c65 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{2}: rebase (finish): returning to refs/heads/master
40122c65 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{3}: rebase (fixup): [#3203] Fixes input validation prior to user api requests
0b378bf2 HEAD@{4}: rebase (fixup): # This is a combination of 3 commits.
e3dc38ab HEAD@{5}: rebase (fixup): # This is a combination of 2 commits.
ffda820e HEAD@{6}: rebase (start): checkout HEAD~4
9f44611c HEAD@{7}: commit: Fix tests
2dd82c2b HEAD@{8}: commit: Better comments
5171bfac HEAD@{9}: commit: Fix spacing
ffda820e HEAD@{10}: commit: [#3203] Fixes input validation prior to user api requests

Great! Let's move back to the commit just right before that rebase happened.

nyxtom@enceladus$ git reset 9f44611c
nyxtom@enceladus$ git log --oneline
9f44611c (HEAD -> master) Fix tests
2dd82c2b Better comments
5171bfac Fix spacing
ffda820e [#3203] Fixes input validation prior to user api requests
5923dfe9 Adding initial project

Great! You're back in business!

Conclusion

If you ever run into trouble, know that all is literally not lost forever. You can even use git fsck --lost-found if you find yourself in a situation where you have orphan commits that aren't actually attached to the commit tree. Be sure to read up on git-scm for more information!

As always, please give me a like and a follow if you liked this article. Also check out my twitter if you're interested!

Cheers! 🍻

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