git amend

28 Apr 2011

A nice git option I stumbled upon today – amend.

Typical scenario – you’ve done a local check-in, then notice there’s a typo in your code comments. Fix up the typo, then use – – amend to re-check-in, without having to do a reset/revert. For example:

git add foo.file
git ci -m "added the frob feature to the whiz-bang"
...
notice and fix typo in foo.file
...
git add foo.file
git ci --amend

When you do the amend check-in, your editor will pop up, allowing you to re-edit the commit message if desired.

Obviously, if you’ve done a commit to a remote/public repository, amend has issues, similar to reset.

Also, I have entries like this in my .gitconfig, hence “git ci” rather than “git commit”.

[alias]
        ci = commit
        co = checkout
        st = status
        br = branch