Editing the git commit message in GitHub

Question

Is there any way of online editing the commit message in GitHub.com, after submission?

From the command line, one can do

git commit --amend -m "New commit message"

as correctly suggested in another question.

Trying git pull and then git push has worked (without any other commit having interfered in the mean time).

But can it be done via the GitHub website?

Answer 1

No, this is not directly possible. The hash for every Git commit is also calculated based on the commit message. When you change the commit message, you change the commit hash. If you want to push that commit, you have to force that push (git push -f). But if already someone pulled your old commit and started a work based on that commit, he would have to rebase his work onto your new commit.

Answer 2

GitHub's instructions for doing this:

1. On the command line, navigate to the repository that contains the commit you want to amend.
2. Type git commit --amend and press Enter.
3. In your text editor, edit the commit message and save the commit.
4. Use the git push --force example-branch command to force push over the old commit.

Source: https://help.github.com/articles/changing-a-commit-message/

Answer 3

You need to git push -f assuming that nobody has pulled the other commit before. Beware, you're changing history.

Answer 4

No, because the commit message is related with the commit SHA / hash, and if we change it the commit SHA is also changed. The way I used is to create a comment on that commit. I can't think the other way.

Answer 5

For intellij users: If you want to make changes in interactive way for past commits, which are not pushed follow below steps in Intellij:

• Select Version Control
• Select Log
• Right click the commit for which you want to amend comment
• Click reword
• Done

Hope it helps

Answer 6

For Android Studio / intellij users:

• Select Version Control
• Select Log
• Right click the commit for which you want to rename
• Click Edit Commit Message
• Write your commit message
• Done

Answer 7

I was facing the same problem.

See in your github for a particular branch and you will come to know the commit id of the very first commit in that branch. do a rebase to that:

git rebase -i

editor will open up. Do a track of your commits from github UI and opened editor and change the messages.

Answer 8

I was asked to amend a patch commit message that I had submitted on github, (and ended up here.) This is what I did to get the job done.

git clone git@github.com:YOURNAME/EXAMPLE.git; cd EXAMPLE; git fetch --all; git pull --all
git checkout -b patch-2 origin/patch-2 # create local patch-2 branch
git commit --amend # update the commit message
git push -f

This works for the last commit on a branch. If the commit in question is deeper you will need to do something more complicated. (I don't know if the fetch and pull are needed, but I just past in that line while I work on something else to save time.)