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I want to edit the commit message of a commit that is 5 commits in the past, that I have not pushed yet. What is the command to do it? Okay so it turns out I

I want to edit the commit message of a commit that is 5 commits in the past, that I have not pushed yet. What is the command to do it? Okay so it turns out I made a minor typo in that commit and I want to change it without adding any more commits. What is the command to do it? Okay so now I want to take all commits that have "bugfix pickme" in the subject and cherry-pick them to master. What is the command to do it? With a decent interface, these actions are basically trivial. I've been using git for several years and I have to think way too hard to figure out what to type just to get what I want to happen. All too frequently I just say 'screw it' and make a sad commit because my job is writing software, not wrestling with git commands.

pkaye 8y ago
Which interface can do the above trivially with git?
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  I think the point was that git is missing an interface that makes these easy, and it badly needs one.
  - dehli 8y ago
    Once you learn how to use `git rebase -i` it makes the above things trivial to do! I didn't know about it for a while, but that's my most often used command to fix up my commits.
- Noumenon72 8y ago
  SourceTree's interactive rebase feature is amazing at the first one. You can also just change a dropdown to "Amend" and start changing your most recent commit. TortoiseHg's search bar was amazing at deciding whether you were searching for commit message, author, or what. You'd just type "bugfix pickme" and you'd get back only the commits you needed. Check out master, right-click the batch, graft. I have five different ways to search my Git repo and all of them combined aren't as good as TortoiseHg's search bar with revsets.
  - mappu 8y ago
    TortoiseHg has the dropdown > Amend feature too. Guitar ( https://soramimi.github.io/Guitar/ https://soramimi.github.io/Guitar/ ) is the closest thing i've found to TortoiseHg for git, really promising but not yet fully baked - with a little help that could be a real TortoiseHg successor. Everything other git GUI i've tried has some problems (git gui + gitk is reliable and featureful, but no grafting & has that Tk UI; git-cola is crashy and the DAG view isn't properly integrated; qgit and gitg can't push to remotes; sourcetree and gitkraken are nonfree; gitextensions and tortoisegit don't run on Linux). One feature of git gui & gitk that TortoiseHg badly misses, though, is the option to stage lines for commit instead of just hunks.
thethirdone 8y ago
> I want to edit the commit message of a commit that is 5 commits in the past, that I have not pushed yet. What is the command to do it? > Okay so it turns out I made a minor typo in that commit and I want to change it without adding any more commits. What is the command to do it? It seems pretty easy to do an interactive rebase for both these. > Okay so now I want to take all commits that have "bugfix pickme" in the subject and cherry-pick them to master. What is the command to do it? This would be pretty simple if you know the hashs of the commits you want to bring over, but more troublesome if you don't. But I can't think of a good interface that makes this trivial without having a specific command for just this action. If this is a common action you do it would be pretty simple make a script which would make that specific command. Additionally, an interactive rebase can hammer this screw too. With an editor that can delete lines that don't match a regex you can simply rebase your bugfix branch on top of master and get rid of all commits that aren't bugfixes. I would say that git's existing interface solves this as well as you could expect a GUI or CLI frontend like the post to do.
ilikepi 8y ago
> I want to edit the commit message of a commit that is 5 commits in the past, that I have not pushed yet. What is the command to do it? Probably something like: git --rebase -i --force HEAD~6 ...followed by setting the commit in question to "edit"; then once the rebase pauses on that commit, using `commit --amend` to edit the message; and finally `rebase --continue`. > Okay so it turns out I made a minor typo in that commit and I want to change it without adding any more commits. What is the command to do it? Same as above, except you'd make the necessary change before `commit --amend`. > Okay so now I want to take all commits that have "bugfix pickme" in the subject and cherry-pick them to master. What is the command to do it? With a decent interface, these actions are basically trivial. You might be able to do this with one of the filter commands, but I haven't used them enough to know. I'd probably just write a shell one-liner for this instead. > I've been using git for several years and I have to think way too hard to figure out what to type just to get what I want to happen. All too frequently I just say 'screw it' and make a sad commit because my job is writing software, not wrestling with git commands. Yeah, it's totally understandable. Between myself and the other dev on my team, I am the de facto git fixer. My coworker occasionally digs himself into a hole and becomes frustrated. Then the next day I do that with CSS, and he has to bail me out. I guess the point is most people have things they are motivated to specialize in.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  How do your your intervening submodules additions/removals turn out when you rebase?
- Noumenon72 8y ago
  Do you view that as in any way acceptable for a UI? All of these things are ultra-common operations. If Outlook were written this way, you'd have to type git inbox --full-conversation -next to read an email, and read it in less.
  - nordsieck 8y ago
    > Do you view that as in any way acceptable for a UI? The reason git is great as a console program is because the fundamental underlying problem you're trying to solve (graph manipulation) is complex. Graphical UIs only work for simple problems. I think most people would like a simple graphical UI, but no one has been able to create one that has the same power as the textual one. This is akin to the reason people don't use visual programming languages.

pkaye 8y ago

Which interface can do the above trivially with git?

mehrdadn 8y ago
I think the point was that git is missing an interface that makes these easy, and it badly needs one.
- dehli 8y ago
  Once you learn how to use `git rebase -i` it makes the above things trivial to do! I didn't know about it for a while, but that's my most often used command to fix up my commits.
Noumenon72 8y ago
SourceTree's interactive rebase feature is amazing at the first one. You can also just change a dropdown to "Amend" and start changing your most recent commit. TortoiseHg's search bar was amazing at deciding whether you were searching for commit message, author, or what. You'd just type "bugfix pickme" and you'd get back only the commits you needed. Check out master, right-click the batch, graft. I have five different ways to search my Git repo and all of them combined aren't as good as TortoiseHg's search bar with revsets.
- mappu 8y ago
  TortoiseHg has the dropdown > Amend feature too. Guitar ( https://soramimi.github.io/Guitar/ https://soramimi.github.io/Guitar/ ) is the closest thing i've found to TortoiseHg for git, really promising but not yet fully baked - with a little help that could be a real TortoiseHg successor. Everything other git GUI i've tried has some problems (git gui + gitk is reliable and featureful, but no grafting & has that Tk UI; git-cola is crashy and the DAG view isn't properly integrated; qgit and gitg can't push to remotes; sourcetree and gitkraken are nonfree; gitextensions and tortoisegit don't run on Linux). One feature of git gui & gitk that TortoiseHg badly misses, though, is the option to stage lines for commit instead of just hunks.

thethirdone 8y ago

> I want to edit the commit message of a commit that is 5 commits in the past, that I have not pushed yet. What is the command to do it? > Okay so it turns out I made a minor typo in that commit and I want to change it without adding any more commits. What is the command to do it? It seems pretty easy to do an interactive rebase for both these. > Okay so now I want to take all commits that have "bugfix pickme" in the subject and cherry-pick them to master. What is the command to do it? This would be pretty simple if you know the hashs of the commits you want to bring over, but more troublesome if you don't. But I can't think of a good interface that makes this trivial without having a specific command for just this action. If this is a common action you do it would be pretty simple make a script which would make that specific command. Additionally, an interactive rebase can hammer this screw too. With an editor that can delete lines that don't match a regex you can simply rebase your bugfix branch on top of master and get rid of all commits that aren't bugfixes. I would say that git's existing interface solves this as well as you could expect a GUI or CLI frontend like the post to do.

ilikepi 8y ago

> I want to edit the commit message of a commit that is 5 commits in the past, that I have not pushed yet. What is the command to do it? Probably something like: git --rebase -i --force HEAD~6 ...followed by setting the commit in question to "edit"; then once the rebase pauses on that commit, using `commit --amend` to edit the message; and finally `rebase --continue`. > Okay so it turns out I made a minor typo in that commit and I want to change it without adding any more commits. What is the command to do it? Same as above, except you'd make the necessary change before `commit --amend`. > Okay so now I want to take all commits that have "bugfix pickme" in the subject and cherry-pick them to master. What is the command to do it? With a decent interface, these actions are basically trivial. You might be able to do this with one of the filter commands, but I haven't used them enough to know. I'd probably just write a shell one-liner for this instead. > I've been using git for several years and I have to think way too hard to figure out what to type just to get what I want to happen. All too frequently I just say 'screw it' and make a sad commit because my job is writing software, not wrestling with git commands. Yeah, it's totally understandable. Between myself and the other dev on my team, I am the de facto git fixer. My coworker occasionally digs himself into a hole and becomes frustrated. Then the next day I do that with CSS, and he has to bail me out. I guess the point is most people have things they are motivated to specialize in.

mehrdadn 8y ago
How do your your intervening submodules additions/removals turn out when you rebase?
Noumenon72 8y ago
Do you view that as in any way acceptable for a UI? All of these things are ultra-common operations. If Outlook were written this way, you'd have to type git inbox --full-conversation -next to read an email, and read it in less.
- nordsieck 8y ago
  > Do you view that as in any way acceptable for a UI? The reason git is great as a console program is because the fundamental underlying problem you're trying to solve (graph manipulation) is complex. Graphical UIs only work for simple problems. I think most people would like a simple graphical UI, but no one has been able to create one that has the same power as the textual one. This is akin to the reason people don't use visual programming languages.