GIT-RESET(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-RESET(1)



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

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


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

       git reset [-q] [<tree-ish>] [--] <paths>...
           This form resets the index entries for all <paths> to their state
           at <tree-ish>. (It does not affect the working tree or 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) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<paths>...]
           Interactively select hunks in the difference between the index and
           <tree-ish> (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 "Interactive
           Mode" 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>. If <mode> is omitted, defaults to
           "--mixed". The <mode> must be one of the following:

           --soft
               Does not touch the index file or 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.

               If -N is specified, removed paths are marked as intent-to-add
               (see git-add(1)).

           --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 or 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'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 2.1.4                         03/19/2016                      GIT-RESET(1)
