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