1git-reset(1) 2============ 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-reset - Reset current HEAD to the specified state 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git reset' [-q] [<commit>] [--] <paths>... 12'git reset' --patch [<commit>] [--] [<paths>...] 13'git reset' [--soft | --mixed | --hard | --merge | --keep] [-q] [<commit>] 14 15DESCRIPTION 16----------- 17In the first and second form, copy entries from <commit> to the index. 18In the third form, set the current branch head to <commit>, optionally 19modifying index and working tree to match. The <commit> defaults to HEAD 20in all forms. 21 22'git reset' [-q] [<commit>] [--] <paths>...:: 23 This form resets the index entries for all <paths> to their 24 state at the <commit>. (It does not affect the working tree, nor 25 the current branch.) 26+ 27This means that `git reset <paths>` is the opposite of `git add 28<paths>`. 29+ 30After running `git reset <paths>` to update the index entry, you can 31use linkgit:git-checkout[1] to check the contents out of the index to 32the working tree. 33Alternatively, using linkgit:git-checkout[1] and specifying a commit, you 34can copy the contents of a path out of a commit to the index and to the 35working tree in one go. 36 37'git reset' --patch|-p [<commit>] [--] [<paths>...]:: 38 Interactively select hunks in the difference between the index 39 and <commit> (defaults to HEAD). The chosen hunks are applied 40 in reverse to the index. 41+ 42This means that `git reset -p` is the opposite of `git add -p` (see 43linkgit:git-add[1]). 44 45'git reset' [--<mode>] [<commit>]:: 46 This form resets the current branch head to <commit> and then 47 updates index and working tree according to <mode>, which must 48 be one of the following: 49+ 50-- 51--soft:: 52 Does not touch the index file nor the working tree at all (but 53 resets the head to <commit>, just like all modes do). This leaves 54 all your changed files "Changes to be committed", as 'git status' 55 would put it. 56 57--mixed:: 58 Resets the index but not the working tree (i.e., the changed files 59 are preserved but not marked for commit) and reports what has not 60 been updated. This is the default action. 61 62--hard:: 63 Matches the working tree and index to that of the tree being 64 switched to. Any changes to tracked files in the working tree 65 since <commit> are lost. 66 67--merge:: 68 Resets the index to match the tree recorded by the named commit, 69 and updates the files that are different between the named commit 70 and the current commit in the working tree. 71 72--keep:: 73 Reset the index to the given commit, keeping local changes in 74 the working tree since the current commit, while updating 75 working tree files without local changes to what appears in 76 the given commit. If a file that is different between the 77 current commit and the given commit has local changes, reset 78 is aborted. 79-- 80 81If you want to undo a commit other than the latest on a branch, 82linkgit:git-revert[1] is your friend. 83 84 85OPTIONS 86------- 87 88-q:: 89--quiet:: 90 Be quiet, only report errors. 91 92 93EXAMPLES 94-------- 95 96Undo add:: 97+ 98------------ 99$ edit <1> 100$ git add frotz.c filfre.c 101$ mailx <2> 102$ git reset <3> 103$ git pull git://info.example.com/ nitfol <4> 104------------ 105+ 106<1> You are happily working on something, and find the changes 107in these files are in good order. You do not want to see them 108when you run "git diff", because you plan to work on other files 109and changes with these files are distracting. 110<2> Somebody asks you to pull, and the changes sounds worthy of merging. 111<3> However, you already dirtied the index (i.e. your index does 112not match the HEAD commit). But you know the pull you are going 113to make does not affect frotz.c nor filfre.c, so you revert the 114index changes for these two files. Your changes in working tree 115remain there. 116<4> Then you can pull and merge, leaving frotz.c and filfre.c 117changes still in the working tree. 118 119Undo a commit and redo:: 120+ 121------------ 122$ git commit ... 123$ git reset --soft HEAD^ <1> 124$ edit <2> 125$ git commit -a -c ORIG_HEAD <3> 126------------ 127+ 128<1> This is most often done when you remembered what you 129just committed is incomplete, or you misspelled your commit 130message, or both. Leaves working tree as it was before "reset". 131<2> Make corrections to working tree files. 132<3> "reset" copies the old head to .git/ORIG_HEAD; redo the 133commit by starting with its log message. If you do not need to 134edit the message further, you can give -C option instead. 135+ 136See also the --amend option to linkgit:git-commit[1]. 137 138Undo a commit, making it a topic branch:: 139+ 140------------ 141$ git branch topic/wip <1> 142$ git reset --hard HEAD~3 <2> 143$ git checkout topic/wip <3> 144------------ 145+ 146<1> You have made some commits, but realize they were premature 147to be in the "master" branch. You want to continue polishing 148them in a topic branch, so create "topic/wip" branch off of the 149current HEAD. 150<2> Rewind the master branch to get rid of those three commits. 151<3> Switch to "topic/wip" branch and keep working. 152 153Undo commits permanently:: 154+ 155------------ 156$ git commit ... 157$ git reset --hard HEAD~3 <1> 158------------ 159+ 160<1> The last three commits (HEAD, HEAD^, and HEAD~2) were bad 161and you do not want to ever see them again. Do *not* do this if 162you have already given these commits to somebody else. (See the 163"RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE" section in linkgit:git-rebase[1] for 164the implications of doing so.) 165 166Undo a merge or pull:: 167+ 168------------ 169$ git pull <1> 170Auto-merging nitfol 171CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in nitfol 172Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result. 173$ git reset --hard <2> 174$ git pull . topic/branch <3> 175Updating from 41223... to 13134... 176Fast-forward 177$ git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD <4> 178------------ 179+ 180<1> Try to update from the upstream resulted in a lot of 181conflicts; you were not ready to spend a lot of time merging 182right now, so you decide to do that later. 183<2> "pull" has not made merge commit, so "git reset --hard" 184which is a synonym for "git reset --hard HEAD" clears the mess 185from the index file and the working tree. 186<3> Merge a topic branch into the current branch, which resulted 187in a fast-forward. 188<4> But you decided that the topic branch is not ready for public 189consumption yet. "pull" or "merge" always leaves the original 190tip of the current branch in ORIG_HEAD, so resetting hard to it 191brings your index file and the working tree back to that state, 192and resets the tip of the branch to that commit. 193 194Undo a merge or pull inside a dirty working tree:: 195+ 196------------ 197$ git pull <1> 198Auto-merging nitfol 199Merge made by recursive. 200 nitfol | 20 +++++---- 201 ... 202$ git reset --merge ORIG_HEAD <2> 203------------ 204+ 205<1> Even if you may have local modifications in your 206working tree, you can safely say "git pull" when you know 207that the change in the other branch does not overlap with 208them. 209<2> After inspecting the result of the merge, you may find 210that the change in the other branch is unsatisfactory. Running 211"git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD" will let you go back to where you 212were, but it will discard your local changes, which you do not 213want. "git reset --merge" keeps your local changes. 214 215 216Interrupted workflow:: 217+ 218Suppose you are interrupted by an urgent fix request while you 219are in the middle of a large change. The files in your 220working tree are not in any shape to be committed yet, but you 221need to get to the other branch for a quick bugfix. 222+ 223------------ 224$ git checkout feature ;# you were working in "feature" branch and 225$ work work work ;# got interrupted 226$ git commit -a -m "snapshot WIP" <1> 227$ git checkout master 228$ fix fix fix 229$ git commit ;# commit with real log 230$ git checkout feature 231$ git reset --soft HEAD^ ;# go back to WIP state <2> 232$ git reset <3> 233------------ 234+ 235<1> This commit will get blown away so a throw-away log message is OK. 236<2> This removes the 'WIP' commit from the commit history, and sets 237 your working tree to the state just before you made that snapshot. 238<3> At this point the index file still has all the WIP changes you 239 committed as 'snapshot WIP'. This updates the index to show your 240 WIP files as uncommitted. 241+ 242See also linkgit:git-stash[1]. 243 244Reset a single file in the index:: 245+ 246Suppose you have added a file to your index, but later decide you do not 247want to add it to your commit. You can remove the file from the index 248while keeping your changes with git reset. 249+ 250------------ 251$ git reset -- frotz.c <1> 252$ git commit -m "Commit files in index" <2> 253$ git add frotz.c <3> 254------------ 255+ 256<1> This removes the file from the index while keeping it in the working 257 directory. 258<2> This commits all other changes in the index. 259<3> Adds the file to the index again. 260 261Keep changes in working tree while discarding some previous commits:: 262+ 263Suppose you are working on something and you commit it, and then you 264continue working a bit more, but now you think that what you have in 265your working tree should be in another branch that has nothing to do 266with what you committed previously. You can start a new branch and 267reset it while keeping the changes in your working tree. 268+ 269------------ 270$ git tag start 271$ git checkout -b branch1 272$ edit 273$ git commit ... <1> 274$ edit 275$ git checkout -b branch2 <2> 276$ git reset --keep start <3> 277------------ 278+ 279<1> This commits your first edits in branch1. 280<2> In the ideal world, you could have realized that the earlier 281 commit did not belong to the new topic when you created and switched 282 to branch2 (i.e. "git checkout -b branch2 start"), but nobody is 283 perfect. 284<3> But you can use "reset --keep" to remove the unwanted commit after 285 you switched to "branch2". 286 287 288DISCUSSION 289---------- 290 291The tables below show what happens when running: 292 293---------- 294git reset --option target 295---------- 296 297to reset the HEAD to another commit (`target`) with the different 298reset options depending on the state of the files. 299 300In these tables, A, B, C and D are some different states of a 301file. For example, the first line of the first table means that if a 302file is in state A in the working tree, in state B in the index, in 303state C in HEAD and in state D in the target, then "git reset --soft 304target" will leave the file in the working tree in state A and in the 305index in state B. It resets (i.e. moves) the HEAD (i.e. the tip of 306the current branch, if you are on one) to "target" (which has the file 307in state D). 308 309 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 310 ---------------------------------------------------- 311 A B C D --soft A B D 312 --mixed A D D 313 --hard D D D 314 --merge (disallowed) 315 --keep (disallowed) 316 317 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 318 ---------------------------------------------------- 319 A B C C --soft A B C 320 --mixed A C C 321 --hard C C C 322 --merge (disallowed) 323 --keep A C C 324 325 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 326 ---------------------------------------------------- 327 B B C D --soft B B D 328 --mixed B D D 329 --hard D D D 330 --merge D D D 331 --keep (disallowed) 332 333 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 334 ---------------------------------------------------- 335 B B C C --soft B B C 336 --mixed B C C 337 --hard C C C 338 --merge C C C 339 --keep B C C 340 341 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 342 ---------------------------------------------------- 343 B C C D --soft B C D 344 --mixed B D D 345 --hard D D D 346 --merge (disallowed) 347 --keep (disallowed) 348 349 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 350 ---------------------------------------------------- 351 B C C C --soft B C C 352 --mixed B C C 353 --hard C C C 354 --merge B C C 355 --keep B C C 356 357"reset --merge" is meant to be used when resetting out of a conflicted 358merge. Any mergy operation guarantees that the working tree file that is 359involved in the merge does not have local change wrt the index before 360it starts, and that it writes the result out to the working tree. So if 361we see some difference between the index and the target and also 362between the index and the working tree, then it means that we are not 363resetting out from a state that a mergy operation left after failing 364with a conflict. That is why we disallow --merge option in this case. 365 366"reset --keep" is meant to be used when removing some of the last 367commits in the current branch while keeping changes in the working 368tree. If there could be conflicts between the changes in the commit we 369want to remove and the changes in the working tree we want to keep, 370the reset is disallowed. That's why it is disallowed if there are both 371changes between the working tree and HEAD, and between HEAD and the 372target. To be safe, it is also disallowed when there are unmerged 373entries. 374 375The following tables show what happens when there are unmerged 376entries: 377 378 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 379 ---------------------------------------------------- 380 X U A B --soft (disallowed) 381 --mixed X B B 382 --hard B B B 383 --merge B B B 384 --keep (disallowed) 385 386 working index HEAD target working index HEAD 387 ---------------------------------------------------- 388 X U A A --soft (disallowed) 389 --mixed X A A 390 --hard A A A 391 --merge A A A 392 --keep (disallowed) 393 394X means any state and U means an unmerged index. 395 396 397Author 398------ 399Written by Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> and Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 400 401Documentation 402-------------- 403Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 404 405GIT 406--- 407Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite