Re: [Feature request] An easier way of rebasing if you just want to "force send" a file back to a previous commit

[Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com>]

On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 07:56:46PM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:
> On 2020-01-12 at 19:42:46, 1234dev wrote:
> > Hello!
> >
> > I'm pretty new to all of this, but I was wondering. Is there an easier way of rebasing if you just want to force send a file back to a previous commit? Rebasing can get quite tiresome in the long run. It's like 7 steps, and that's without the merge conflicts someone with my luck is guaranteed to run into.
> >
> > For instance, say I've made changes to a file. Those changes are too tiny and insignificant to make a new commit out of - they actually ought to be part of a commit I made last night.
> >
> > If there just was a way to cheat :) I'm aware it would rewrite my entire history but that's okay, I haven't shared my repo with anybody yet. Maybe something along the lines of "git rebase --off-she-goes <file> <hash>"?
> >
> > As opposed to "git stash && git rebase --interactive '<hash>^' && <change pick => edit> && <apply changes manually> && git add <file> && git commit --amend && git rebase --continue && git stash pop && <merge conflict that requires manual intervention> && git rebase --continue && git stash pop && <still a conflict> && rm <file> && git checkout <file> && <repeat the whole process> && <still a conflict> && <go to IRC and ask for help>
>
> The way I usually handle this is something like the following, although
> I have some helper aliases that wrap this:
>
>   git add <file>
>   git commit --fixup <hash>
>   git stash # if necessary
>   GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR=true git rebase -i --autosquash
>
> That does use the interactive machinery to apply the fixup commit, but
> it also avoids prompting you to edit the interactive TODO list.  It
> doesn't avoid the merge conflicts which can occur, but it is (IMO) the
> easiest way to go about it.

I couldn't quite tell one way or the other, but I think that the
original poster was asking about the case in which one wants to move
some hunks out of one commit and into an earlier one.

I usually go about this with something like:

  h="$(git rev-parse HEAD)"
  git reset HEAD^
  git add <file[s]> # re-stage the files that you want to move "up"
  git commit --fixup <hash>
  git add --all .
  git commit -C "$h" # "re-apply" the commit that you were moving out of
  GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR=true git rebase -i --autosquash

> If I'd like to edit the message, I use "git commit --squash" to add the
> comments I'd like to add and I'm only prompted to squash together those
> messages.

My preference is usually to allow 'git rebase -i' to open my "$EDITOR"
and change the todo list to "reword" for any commit(s) for which I want
to change the message.

> --
> brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
> OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

Thanks,
Taylor