CODEWITHSUNDEEP
git
Gabriel
Gabriel

Reputation: 197

how to revert one git commit before a rebase?

Consider the state

A - B - C - D - E - F - G (master)
             \
             B1 - B2 - B3 (B-branch)

Now i want to rebase B-branch onto G. Everything works well, except for E which is a merge commit that adds a bunch of "TODO" comments around the code changed in the B branch, but which causes confusion on git diff algo, and even selecting git checkout --ours on every single conflict, still gets a bad state after the rebase.

What's the best way to ignore the changes on commit E and rebase the branch?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 480

Answers (1)

Gabriel
Gabriel

Reputation: 197

answering myself as the answer become obvious after i drew the branches. but please let me know if there is something smarter.

A: just checkout master, revert the trouble/undesirable commit, and carry on as usual!

# NOTE: you can name a copy of master any other name to keep
#       your actual master/main branch clean, using the actual
#       master branch on the example for clarity.
#       if you do use your master branch, reset it back afterwards!
git checkout master
git pull
git revert E
# at this point we have
# A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H(revert E)
git checkout branchB
git rebase master

done. now we have

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - B1 - B2 - B3

if we call H as B0 it makes it easier to visualize what the branch actually looks like from a pull-request point of view:

before:
master: A - B - C - D - E - F - G
B-branch:    `- B1 - B2 - B3

after:
master: A - B - C - D - E - F - G
B-branch:                        `- B0 - B1 - B2 - B3

which is a up to date clean merge. and you can easily add the changes from E back on a B4 commit if needed, without going insane with conflict-per-commit if leaving git rebase do it.

Note that you can revert as many commits as needed ;) This is perfect if the "temporary" solution to a problem was added while you worked on the permanent fix later on. It also documents exactly what was done instead of hiding the reverts in the reworked post-conflict commits.

Upvotes: 3

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