GIT-RESET(1)                                                      GIT-RESET(1)



NAME
       git-reset - Reset current HEAD to the specified state

SYNOPSIS
       git reset [-q] [<commit>] [--] <paths>...
       git reset [--patch|-p] [<commit>] [--] [<paths>...]
       git reset [--soft | --mixed | --hard | --merge | --keep] [-q] [<commit>]





DESCRIPTION
       In the first and second form, copy entries from <commit> to the index.
       In the third form, set the current branch head (HEAD) to <commit>,
       optionally modifying index and working tree to match. The <commit>
       defaults to HEAD in all forms.


       git reset [-q] [<commit>] [--] <paths>...
              This form resets the index entries for all <paths> to their
              state at <commit>. (It does not affect the working tree, nor the
              current branch.)

              This means that git reset <paths> is the opposite of git add
              <paths>.

              After running git reset <paths> to update the index entry, you
              can use git-checkout(1) to check the contents out of the index
              to the working tree. Alternatively, using git-checkout(1) and
              specifying a commit, you can copy the contents of a path out of
              a commit to the index and to the working tree in one go.


       git reset --patch|-p [<commit>] [--] [<paths>...]
              Interactively select hunks in the difference between the index
              and <commit> (defaults to HEAD). The chosen hunks are applied in
              reverse to the index.

              This means that git reset -p is the opposite of git add -p, i.e.
              you can use it to selectively reset hunks. See the
              &#8220;Interactive Mode&#8221; section of git-add(1) to learn
              how to operate the --patch mode.


       git reset [--<mode>] [<commit>]
              This form resets the current branch head to <commit> and
              possibly updates the index (resetting it to the tree of
              <commit>) and the working tree depending on <mode>, which must
              be one of the following:



              --soft Does not touch the index file nor the working tree at all
                     (but resets the head to <commit>, just like all modes
                     do). This leaves all your changed files "Changes to be
                     committed", as git status would put it.


              --mixed
                     Resets the index but not the working tree (i.e., the
                     changed files are preserved but not marked for commit)
                     and reports what has not been updated. This is the
                     default action.


              --hard Resets the index and working tree. Any changes to tracked
                     files in the working tree since <commit> are discarded.


              --merge
                     Resets the index and updates the files in the working
                     tree that are different between <commit> and HEAD, but
                     keeps those which are different between the index and
                     working tree (i.e. which have changes which have not been
                     added). If a file that is different between <commit> and
                     the index has unstaged changes, reset is aborted.

                     In other words, --merge does something like a git
                     read-tree -u -m <commit>, but carries forward unmerged
                     index entries.


              --keep Resets index entries and updates files in the working
                     tree that are different between <commit> and HEAD. If a
                     file that is different between <commit> and HEAD has
                     local changes, reset is aborted.


              If you want to undo a commit other than the latest on a branch,
              git-revert(1) is your friend.


OPTIONS
       -q, --quiet
              Be quiet, only report errors.


EXAMPLES
       Undo add

              $ edit                                     (1)
              $ git add frotz.c filfre.c
              $ mailx                                    (2)
              $ git reset                                (3)
              $ git pull git://info.example.com/ nitfol  (4)


              1. You are happily working on something, and find the changes in
              these files are in good order. You do not want to see them when
              you run "git diff", because you plan to work on other files and
              changes with these files are distracting.
              2. Somebody asks you to pull, and the changes sounds worthy of
              merging.
              3. However, you already dirtied the index (i.e. your index does
              not match the HEAD commit). But you know the pull you are going
              to make does not affect frotz.c nor filfre.c, so you revert the
              index changes for these two files. Your changes in working tree
              remain there.
              4. Then you can pull and merge, leaving frotz.c and filfre.c
              changes still in the working tree.



       Undo a commit and redo

              $ git commit ...
              $ git reset --soft HEAD^      (1)
              $ edit                        (2)
              $ git commit -a -c ORIG_HEAD  (3)


              1. This is most often done when you remembered what you just
              committed is incomplete, or you misspelled your commit message,
              or both. Leaves working tree as it was before "reset".
              2. Make corrections to working tree files.
              3. "reset" copies the old head to .git/ORIG_HEAD; redo the
              commit by starting with its log message. If you do not need to
              edit the message further, you can give -C option instead.

              See also the --amend option to git-commit(1).



       Undo a commit, making it a topic branch

              $ git branch topic/wip     (1)
              $ git reset --hard HEAD~3  (2)
              $ git checkout topic/wip   (3)


              1. You have made some commits, but realize they were premature
              to be in the "master" branch. You want to continue polishing
              them in a topic branch, so create "topic/wip" branch off of the
              current HEAD.
              2. Rewind the master branch to get rid of those three commits.
              3. Switch to "topic/wip" branch and keep working.



       Undo commits permanently

              $ git commit ...
              $ git reset --hard HEAD~3   (1)


              1. The last three commits (HEAD, HEAD^, and HEAD~2) were bad and
              you do not want to ever see them again. Do not do this if you
              have already given these commits to somebody else. (See the
              "RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE" section in git-rebase(1) for
              the implications of doing so.)



       Undo a merge or pull

              $ git pull                         (1)
              Auto-merging nitfol
              CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in nitfol
              Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
              $ git reset --hard                 (2)
              $ git pull . topic/branch          (3)
              Updating from 41223... to 13134...
              Fast-forward
              $ git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD       (4)


              1. Try to update from the upstream resulted in a lot of
              conflicts; you were not ready to spend a lot of time merging
              right now, so you decide to do that later.
              2. "pull" has not made merge commit, so "git reset --hard" which
              is a synonym for "git reset --hard HEAD" clears the mess from
              the index file and the working tree.
              3. Merge a topic branch into the current branch, which resulted
              in a fast-forward.
              4. But you decided that the topic branch is not ready for public
              consumption yet. "pull" or "merge" always leaves the original
              tip of the current branch in ORIG_HEAD, so resetting hard to it
              brings your index file and the working tree back to that state,
              and resets the tip of the branch to that commit.



       Undo a merge or pull inside a dirty working tree

              $ git pull                         (1)
              Auto-merging nitfol
              Merge made by recursive.
               nitfol                |   20 +++++----
               ...
              $ git reset --merge ORIG_HEAD      (2)


              1. Even if you may have local modifications in your working
              tree, you can safely say "git pull" when you know that the
              change in the other branch does not overlap with them.
              2. After inspecting the result of the merge, you may find that
              the change in the other branch is unsatisfactory. Running "git
              reset --hard ORIG_HEAD" will let you go back to where you were,
              but it will discard your local changes, which you do not want.
              "git reset --merge" keeps your local changes.



       Interrupted workflow
              Suppose you are interrupted by an urgent fix request while you
              are in the middle of a large change. The files in your working
              tree are not in any shape to be committed yet, but you need to
              get to the other branch for a quick bugfix.


              $ git checkout feature ;# you were working in "feature" branch and
              $ work work work       ;# got interrupted
              $ git commit -a -m "snapshot WIP"                 (1)
              $ git checkout master
              $ fix fix fix
              $ git commit ;# commit with real log
              $ git checkout feature
              $ git reset --soft HEAD^ ;# go back to WIP state  (2)
              $ git reset                                       (3)


              1. This commit will get blown away so a throw-away log message
              is OK.
              2. This removes the WIP commit from the commit history, and sets
              your working tree to the state just before you made that
              snapshot.
              3. At this point the index file still has all the WIP changes
              you committed as snapshot WIP. This updates the index to show
              your WIP files as uncommitted.

              See also git-stash(1).



       Reset a single file in the index
              Suppose you have added a file to your index, but later decide
              you do not want to add it to your commit. You can remove the
              file from the index while keeping your changes with git reset.


              $ git reset -- frotz.c                      (1)
              $ git commit -m "Commit files in index"     (2)
              $ git add frotz.c                           (3)


              1. This removes the file from the index while keeping it in the
              working directory.
              2. This commits all other changes in the index.
              3. Adds the file to the index again.



       Keep changes in working tree while discarding some previous commits
              Suppose you are working on something and you commit it, and then
              you continue working a bit more, but now you think that what you
              have in your working tree should be in another branch that has
              nothing to do with what you committed previously. You can start
              a new branch and reset it while keeping the changes in your
              working tree.


              $ git tag start
              $ git checkout -b branch1
              $ edit
              $ git commit ...                            (1)
              $ edit
              $ git checkout -b branch2                   (2)
              $ git reset --keep start                    (3)


              1. This commits your first edits in branch1.
              2. In the ideal world, you could have realized that the earlier
              commit did not belong to the new topic when you created and
              switched to branch2 (i.e. "git checkout -b branch2 start"), but
              nobody is perfect.
              3. But you can use "reset --keep" to remove the unwanted commit
              after you switched to "branch2".



DISCUSSION
       The tables below show what happens when running:

       git reset --option target





       to reset the HEAD to another commit (target) with the different reset
       options depending on the state of the files.


       In these tables, A, B, C and D are some different states of a file. For
       example, the first line of the first table means that if a file is in
       state A in the working tree, in state B in the index, in state C in
       HEAD and in state D in the target, then "git reset --soft target" will
       leave the file in the working tree in state A and in the index in state
       B. It resets (i.e. moves) the HEAD (i.e. the tip of the current branch,
       if you are on one) to "target" (which has the file in state D).

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        A       B     C    D     --soft   A       B     D
                                 --mixed  A       D     D
                                 --hard   D       D     D
                                 --merge (disallowed)
                                 --keep  (disallowed)

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        A       B     C    C     --soft   A       B     C
                                 --mixed  A       C     C
                                 --hard   C       C     C
                                 --merge (disallowed)
                                 --keep   A       C     C

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        B       B     C    D     --soft   B       B     D
                                 --mixed  B       D     D
                                 --hard   D       D     D
                                 --merge  D       D     D
                                 --keep  (disallowed)

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        B       B     C    C     --soft   B       B     C
                                 --mixed  B       C     C
                                 --hard   C       C     C
                                 --merge  C       C     C
                                 --keep   B       C     C

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        B       C     C    D     --soft   B       C     D
                                 --mixed  B       D     D
                                 --hard   D       D     D
                                 --merge (disallowed)
                                 --keep  (disallowed)

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        B       C     C    C     --soft   B       C     C
                                 --mixed  B       C     C
                                 --hard   C       C     C
                                 --merge  B       C     C
                                 --keep   B       C     C


       "reset --merge" is meant to be used when resetting out of a conflicted
       merge. Any mergy operation guarantees that the working tree file that
       is involved in the merge does not have local change wrt the index
       before it starts, and that it writes the result out to the working
       tree. So if we see some difference between the index and the target and
       also between the index and the working tree, then it means that we are
       not resetting out from a state that a mergy operation left after
       failing with a conflict. That is why we disallow --merge option in this
       case.


       "reset --keep" is meant to be used when removing some of the last
       commits in the current branch while keeping changes in the working
       tree. If there could be conflicts between the changes in the commit we
       want to remove and the changes in the working tree we want to keep, the
       reset is disallowed. That&#8217;s why it is disallowed if there are
       both changes between the working tree and HEAD, and between HEAD and
       the target. To be safe, it is also disallowed when there are unmerged
       entries.


       The following tables show what happens when there are unmerged entries:

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        X       U     A    B     --soft  (disallowed)
                                 --mixed  X       B     B
                                 --hard   B       B     B
                                 --merge  B       B     B
                                 --keep  (disallowed)

       working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
       ----------------------------------------------------
        X       U     A    A     --soft  (disallowed)
                                 --mixed  X       A     A
                                 --hard   A       A     A
                                 --merge  A       A     A
                                 --keep  (disallowed)


       X means any state and U means an unmerged index.


GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite




                                                                  GIT-RESET(1)
