How can I undo 1 file change in my previous commit

Question

I made 2 commits (and I did not press) in git, where "Commit 2" is the most recent ":

git log -2 commit 791962d776f66253d656586b097b2677eaa983d1 Author: michael <michael@michael-laptop.(none)> Date: Tue Jun 29 23:20:58 2010 -0700 Commit 2 commit b743075e81f6fe25fe48ddbef2b5e7cc06623533 Author: michael <michael@michael-laptop.(none)> Date: Tue Feb 16 23:09:53 2010 -0800 Commit 1 

And in my commit 1 b743075e81f6fe25fe48ddbef2b5e7cc06623533 I touched / changed a few files:

  dir1/file1.cpp dir1/file1.h dir1/file2.cpp dir1/file2.h 

My questions are: how can I revert my changes that I made to dir1 / file2.cpp, dir1 / file2.h from commit 1? And keep everything else the same?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The simplest solution is from your last commit (HEAD) to:

• checkout these two files in the old version,
• add them
• and then lock.

     git checkout b743075e81 - dir1 / file2.cpp
     git checkout b743075e81 - dir1 / file2.h
     git add dir1 / file2.cpp # only if you made additional changes
     git add dir1 / file2.h # only if you made additional changes
     git commit -m "revert dir1 / file2.cpp and dir1 / file2.h"

As Chris Johnsen mentions in the comments:

git checkout with pathspecs updates the index (for example, git reset with pathspecs) and the working tree, so git add not required if no additional changes are made after checking.

Answer 2

If you have already pushed your commits to the origin, then the other solutions described here (using git reset or git checkout and then git commit ) are your only reasonable option.

However , if you have not yet pushed your changes, and you want to delete all traces that have ever been committed, interactive permutation is a good option. Use the following command to restore the last two commits:

 git rebase --interactive HEAD~2 

An editor opens with your two commits. You want to edit the file to show the following, and then save; in particular, you want to change pick before the first commit to edit :

 edit b743075 Commit 1 pick 791962d Commit 2 

Git will then put us in a state in which we can edit the first commit (without touching the second). It says that you can change the commit with git commit --amend , but we really want to reset to commit before the voice and undo it completely:

 git reset HEAD^ 

This will push the changes from Commit 1 back to your working tree. Then git add only the files you want to save and overwrite them with git commit :

 git add dir1/file1.cpp git add dir1/file1.h git commit -m "Commit 1" 

Finally, do a hard reset to delete the files that you do not want to save from your working tree, and complete rebase:

 git reset --hard git rebase --continue 

When the overflow is complete, your repository will have both commits and traces of file2.* Files.

Answer 3

Use the following command to roll back a file with a previously committed file based on commit hashing and the file name you want to return

  git reset <commit hash> <filename> 

For your use, use

  git reset b743075e81f6fe25fe48ddbef2b5e7cc06623533 dir1/file2.cpp git reset b743075e81f6fe25fe48ddbef2b5e7cc06623533 dir1/file2.h