How to go back a few commits, but still keep commit history in git?

Question

This has been sort of asked before, but not exactly.

Here is what I want to know.

Suppose I have git repository with the following commits:

$ git log
commit4
commit3
commit2
commit1

I now realize that I need to get commit 1 back into my workspace and "start over". I can do this:

$ git reset --hard commit1

This will accomplish what I want, but if I go and look at the log again:

$ git log
commit1

Only the first commit is showing up. What I really want to see is this:

$ git log
commit5-same-as-commit1
commit4
commit3
commit2
commit1

I am coming from subversion and if I wanted to accomplish this in subversion, it would be quite easy. Just check out a particular previous revision to your local workspace and then commit. Now, you have all the previous revisions, plus the new one.

How do I accomplish this in git?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There might be other ways but this is one.

git revert -n commit4 commit3 commit2 commit1 

will get your working tree (and index) back to the state at commit 1. After that, git commit will create a new commit on top of commit 4 which will change your tree to back to what it was at commit 1.

Answer 2

As a DVCS, Git doesn't enforce a linear line of development, but rather a directed graph. Here's what I would do, given that you want to save the other commits:

$ git branch feature-I-was-working-on commit4

This creates a branch titled feature-I-was-working-on, and points it at commit4. This way, you can put this branch aside and come back to it later.

$ git checkout commit1

This makes your working files the same as they were after commit1 was committed.

$ git checkout -b feature-Im-now-working-on

This creates a new branch titled feature-Im-now-working-on, and points it at the current commit you're on (if you've been following along, that's commit1).

So now if you git checkout feature-Im-now-working-on, you don't get any of commit2, commit3, or commit4. If you check out feature-I-was-working-on, you get those.

Now, you're on the branch feature-Im-now-working-on, and you make more commits. Those commits don't get into feature-I-was-working-on, but you can go back to it at any time.

But let's say that now you want to get commit2, commit3, and commit4 into feature-Im-now-working-on. That's simple! First check out feature-Im-now-working-on, then run this command:

$ git merge feature-I-was-working-on

DVCSs are more complicated than Subversion, but they're also more powerful. If you work with them and not against them, they let you easily do things you would never think of in Subversion.