Context:
I'm learning how to use git with Eclipse and am using it for a small project with only a local repository.
Problem:
I just noticed that a commit I made earlier has an incorrect description attached to it.
There's nothing wrong with the files I committed or anything but for clarity's sake (if I want to revert or whatever) I'd like to change the description which is misleading.
I can't just amend previous commit as I have made more commits since then.
Floundering attempts to solve problem:
I variously tried creating new branches, amending commits and then rebasing, but end up with a bunch of scary looking merge conflicts and a spaghetti looking history tree.
I could just copy and paste my newer commits into txt files, revert back to the commit with the wrong info and start again from there, but I figure the whole point of using git is to avoid doing stuff like that.
Question:
Is there a simple way to just change an older commit's description text?
If not what are the steps for the complicated way in egit?!
If you already pushed the revisions somewhere: don't!
Otherwise: use git rebase -i <SOME_OLD_REVISION> and mark the commits to be changed with the r(eword) option.
Once you close the file that was popped up, rebasing will start and you'll be prompted for every commit you chose to enter the new commit message.
Assume you have the following commit history (newest first):
f6f6f6f last commit
d4d4d4d ...
c3c3c3c third commit
b2b2b2b second commit
a1a1a1a first commit
And want to change the messages for b2b2b2b and c3c3c3c, you would do
git rebase -i a1a1a1a
Next, your favourite editor will pop up and show you this dialog:
pick f6f6f6f last commit
pick ...
pick c3c3c3c third commit
pick b2b2b2b second commit
# Rebase b2b2b2b..f6f6f6f onto a1a1a1a
#
# Commands:
# p, pick = use commit
# r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
# f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
# x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
#
# If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST.
#
# However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted.
#
# Note that empty commits are commented out
Change pick to r or reword for commits b2b2b2b and c3c3c3c, save the file and exit the editor.
Next, rebasing will start.
For the commits you chose to reword, you could then enter the new commit message.
Related
I have spent a long time reading and trying to figure out git commit --amend, but I still do not understand how the # are used in the editmsg.
I am worried to edit this without knowing what I am doing because I have read that git commit --amend only does the most recent commit,and once I save and exit , it will be counted as a new commit.
I have accidentally committed and pushed (but the push failed) some large files. But I have also written scripts that were supposed to be pushed from the same commit as the large files.
I am trying to delete the lines with the large files in the new commit , but I don't understand how to do this.
This is my commit file below, but I don't understadn if I should delete the lines with the # (I tried this but it didn't work , and the git log is the same ):
the commit message of the one I want to change is here but I don't want to just change the message, I want to delete the large files in the commit so that the push works.
# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
#
# Date: Thu Feb 8 18:30:32 2018 -0900
#
# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
# (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
#
# Changes to be committed:
# new file: script.py
# new file: super_large_file.npy <--- I deleted this line but it appeared again, it is becuase deleting a line with # is ignored? Do I just rewrite the stuff after the # lines?
My question is , why does deleting the line of the large file (including the # ) not work and the commit remains still wanting to push the large file?
Should I just rewrite the commit file without the # ? But I also read that git takes away the # , so I am confused
First, those are comments: removing a line starting with # has no effect in your git repository content.
They include hints and the list of files included with the commit.
I would recommend, in order to actually remove that file from your repo history, to use the new git filter-repo which replaces BFG and git filter-branch.
Note: if you get the following error message when running the above-mentioned commands:
Error: need a version of `git` whose `diff-tree` command has the `--combined-all-paths` option`
it means you have to update git.
First: do that one copy of your local repo (a new clone)
See "Path based filtering":
git filter-repo --path file-to-remove --invert-paths
At the end, you can (if you are the only one working on that repository) do a git push --force
Second, the hints displayed in a commit messages are changing with with Git 2.25.1 (Feb. 2020): "git commit" gives output similar to "git status" when there is nothing to commit, but without honoring the advise.statusHints configuration variable, which has been corrected.
See discussion.
See commit 5c4f55f (17 Dec 2019) by Heba Waly (HebaWaly).
(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 9403e5d, 22 Jan 2020)
commit: honor advice.statusHints when rejecting an empty commit
Signed-off-by: Heba Waly
In ea9882bfc4 (commit: disable status hints when writing to COMMIT_EDITMSG, 2013-09-12) the intent was to disable status hints when writing to COMMIT_EDITMSG, because giving the hints in the "git status" like output in the commit message template are too late to be useful (they say things like "'git add' to stage", but that is only possible after aborting the current "git commit" session).
But there is one case that the hints can be useful: When the current attempt to commit is rejected because no change is recorded in the index.
The message is given and "git commit" errors out, so the hints can immediately be followed by the user.
Teach the codepath to honor the configuration variable.
The hint (now visible in the commit message editor) will be:
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
I tried a different way than amending the commit , and removed the file completely from my local and github repositories. I am not sure how to keep it in my local repository still, but I don't know if this is necessary because I don't really understand the difference between my local repository and the local drive .
https://help.github.com/articles/removing-files-from-a-repository-s-history/
(I found this link from Bluemoon93's answer on Can't push to GitHub because of large file which I already deleted )
I find that (unlike some other implementations), Mercurial is over zealous on what it pushes - and a pushed commit is a non-editable commit.
I have trained myself to use hg push -b branchawesome or hg push -r awesomer. However, sometimes my fingers do an "oops" and everything - including transient Draft work - is pushed to the upstream repository.
Is there a Mercurial-way to either prevent hg push outright or require a "force" flag, as in hg push --draft?
I'd prefer not to use Secret Phases. Despite how I've worded the question, the goal is to help/encourage others to be specific about what changes are pushed - without incurring an entirely new concept.
First, a note: Mercurial will not by default let you push a new head/branch without explicitly saying so (you'll get an error message telling you that you need --new-branch or -f to actually push your changes). Accidentally pushing more than you intended can only happen if you have commits on multiple existing branches.
Second, the easy (but problematic) solution is to use an alias for push, e.g. push = push -r . will be more restrictive. However, this overrides the push command, making it difficult to get at the original version (which you can do via rawpush = !$HG --config alias.push=push "$#", for example).
The cleanest way is to use an extension that wraps the push command and provides a different default. e.g.:
from mercurial import extensions, commands
testedwith = "3.5"
default_push_rev = "."
# alternative choices
# Push the current revision, but only if it is a head
# default_push_rev = ". and head()"
# Push the current revisions and all revisions depending on it
# default_push_rev = "descendants(.)"
# Push the most recent head that follows the current revision
# default_push_rev = "last(descendants(.))"
# Push the tip revision (i.e. the chronologically most recent commit).
# default_push_rev = "tip"
# Push only public change sets
# default_push_rev = "public()"
def override_push(original_cmd, ui, repo, *pats, **opts):
have_rev = False
for opt in ["rev", "branch"]:
if opts.has_key(opt) and opts[opt]:
have_rev = True
if not have_rev:
opts["rev"] = [default_push_rev]
return original_cmd(ui, repo, *pats, **opts)
def uisetup(ui):
extensions.wrapcommand(commands.table, "push", override_push)
Unlike the alias, this will only change the default revisons to be pushed if none is explicitly provided. Note that there are multiple choices that may make sense. The above code is setup to push . by default, but there are alternatives that you may like better.
Note also that the extension does not override the hg outgoing command, but if you wish, that can be easily done by duplicating the wrapcommand line and substituting "outgoing" for "push" in the duplicate line.
To get the original behavior, just use hg push -r 'all()', possibly as an alias:
[alias]
push-all = push -r 'all()'
EDIT: Fixed a bug in the original code which ignored the branch option.
It is a very simple and stupid question,
I am working on 2 tasks and modified 2 sets of files in the code.
Now when I type 'hg ci', it checks in all the files. Can I remove certain files from the checkin i.e. do checking for only one task?
If I remove the files in the 'check in message' will they be removed from the checkin
Thanks for all the answers
This seems like a big flaw, My use case is very simple and general. Most of the time dev are working on various tasks , some are ready , some are not, bug fixes etc.
Now the only simple solution seems to be multiple local repos or clones
Use hg ci <files>... to commit only certain files in your working directory.
If you want to pick file by file you can use the record command. It ships with mercurial, but you have to turn it on if you want to use it by putting: record= in the [extensions] section of your ~/.hgrc.
It goes hunk by hunk, but you can answer for a whole file:
y - record this change
n - skip this change
s - skip remaining changes to this file
f - record remaining changes to this file
d - done, skip remaining changes and files
a - record all changes to all remaining files
q - quit, recording no changes
? - display help
I'll point out that if you're committing some files but not others it's certain that you've not run your test suite on the one change without the other, but maybe that doesn't apply in your case.
This isn't possible with mercurial out of the box. As have been suggested there are several ways of selecting what files you want to commit. To get this function via the commit message template, you would need an extension or a shell script wrapping the commit command. Here's one way to do that:
[alias]
ci = ! hg-partial-commit
hg-partial-commit:
#!/bin/sh
# partial commit
edit=$(mktemp ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/$(basename $0).XXXXXXXXXXXX)
filelist=$(mktemp ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/$(basename $0).XXXXXXXXXXXX)
logmessage=$(mktemp ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/$(basename $0).XXXXXXXXXXXX)
cleanup="rm -f '$edit' '$filelist' '$logmessage'"
trap "$cleanup" 0 1 2 3 15
(
echo user: $(hg debugconfig ui.username)
echo branch: $(hg branch)
hg parents --template 'parent: {rev}:{node|short} {author} {date|isodate}\n'
echo
echo 'Enter commit message. Select files to commit by deleting lines:'
hg status 'set:not unknown()' | sed -e 's/^/#/'
) | sed -e 's/^/HG: /' >"$edit"
${VISUAL:-${EDITOR:-vi}} "$edit"
egrep -v '^HG:' "$edit" >"$logmessage"
egrep '^HG: #' "$edit" | cut -c8- >"$filelist"
hg commit -l "$logmessage" "listfile:$filelist"
$cleanup
The real problem here is the fact that you're doing changes related to different tasks jumbled together. Mercurial has a few ways you can keep things separate.
Task Branches
Suppose you've been working on a task and you've checked in a few times since you last pulled, but things aren't ready to share yet.
o----o----B----o----o----o
Here, B is the revision where you started your changes. What we do is (after making sure our current changes are checked in):
> hg update -r B
<do our work on the other task>
> hg commit
We've now created a new branch with the changes for this task separated from the changes for our original task.
o----o----B----o----o----o
\
----o
We can do this for as many different tasks as we want. The only problem is that sometimes remembering which branch is which can be awkward. This is where features like bookmarks come in useful. A bookmark is a tag which moves forward as commits are made so that it always points at the head of a branch.
Mercurial Queues
MQ adds the ability to work on changes incrementally and move between them by pushing and poping then off a stack (or "Queue" I guess). So if I had a set of uncommitted changes that I needed to split up I'd:
> hg qrecord taska
> hg qrecord taskb
> hg qrecord taskc
I'd use the record extension (or more likely the crecord extension) to select which parts of files I want to select.
If I needed to go back to taska and make some changes:
> hg qpop; hg qpop # pop two off the queue to go back to task a
<Do changes>
> hg qrefresh # update task a with the new changes
When I want to turn the queue into normal changesets:
> hg qpush or hg qpop # get the changes I want converted onto the queue
> hg qfinish -a # converts mq changes to normal changesets
There's other methods too, but that will do for now.
You will unavoidably have to either specify the files that you want to add or the files you want to leave out. If you have a lot of files, as you indicate above, the following steps will simplify the procedure (I'm assuming a UNIX-ish system here, Windows would be slightly different).
First, generate a list of changed files:
hg status -mard -n >/tmp/changedlist.txt
The -mard options will list all files that were modified, added, removed, or delated. The -n option will list them without the status prefix so that all you have is a raw list of files.
Second, edit /tmp/changedlist.txt with your favorite text editor so that it contains only the files you wish to commit.
Third, commit these files:
hg commit `cat /tmp/changedlist.txt`
You will be able to review the files to be committed before actually performing the commit.
Alternatively, you can add more files to a commit incrementally by using
`hg commit --amend file...`
Here, hg commit --amend will not create a new commit, but add the new files to the existing commit. So, you start out with committing just a couple of files, then incrementally adding more until you are done. This still requires you to type all of them in.
For yet another alternative, you can use Mercurial Queues to split a commit in more sophisticated ways, but that's a bit more of an advanced topic.
I'm in the process of learning Mercurial, and even though I installed TortoiseHG, I find myself turning more and more to the command line.
So often I would like to check what the result of a given hg command would be before I actually run it. Is there any equivalent to the -whatif switch known from PowerShell I can use, or how would you go about checking what would be committed using a given hg commit statement?
When you do commit your message editor will contain a list of files that will be committed in the ignored section. If you commit with hg -m "message" this won't work as the editor step is skipped:
HG: Enter commit message. Lines beginning with 'HG:' are removed.
HG: Leave message empty to abort commit.
HG: --
HG: user: User <user#user.land>
HG: branch 'default'
HG: changed myfile.yxy
You can use hg commit and hg rollback to undo the last commit if it contained a file that you did not want to commit. The rollback works as long as you did not hg push to another repository.
Status works with the same patterns as commit. You can use hg status some/path/* and then hg commit some/path/* only replacing the command to use.
Often the -n switch or --dry-run switch will show you what would have happened for a particular command. commit doesn't have an -n switch, but you could run hg diff to see the actual changes, or hg status to see what's going on with each file.
This question already has answers here:
Mercurial: how to amend the last commit?
(8 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I am currently using TortoiseHg (Mercurial) and accidentally committed an incorrect commit message. How do I go about editing this commit message in the repository?
Update: Mercurial has added --amend which should be the preferred option now.
You can rollback the last commit (but only the last one) with hg rollback and then reapply it.
Important: this permanently removes the latest commit (or pull). So if you've done a hg update that commit is no longer in your working directory then it's gone forever. So make a copy first.
Other than that, you cannot change the repository's history (including commit messages), because everything in there is check-summed. The only thing you could do is prune the history after a given changeset, and then recreate it accordingly.
None of this will work if you have already published your changes (unless you can get hold of all copies), and you also cannot "rewrite history" that include GPG-signed commits (by other people).
Well, I used to do this way:
Imagine, you have 500 commits, and your erroneous commit message is in r.498.
hg qimport -r 498:tip
hg qpop -a
joe .hg/patches/498.diff
(change the comment, after the mercurial header)
hg qpush -a
hg qdelete -r qbase:qtip
Good news: hg 2.2 just added git like --amend option.
and in tortoiseHg, you can use "Amend current revision" by select black arrow on the right of commit button
I know this is an old post and you marked the question as answered. I was looking for the same thing recently and I found the histedit extension very useful. The process is explained here:
http://knowledgestockpile.blogspot.com/2010/12/changing-commit-message-of-revision-in.html
Last operation was the commit in question
To change the commit message of the last commit when the last mercurial operation was a commit you can use
$ hg rollback
to roll back the last commit and re-commit it with the new message:
$ hg ci -m 'new message'
But be careful because the rollback command also rolls back following operations:
import
pull
push (with this repository as the destination)
unbundle
(see hg help rollback)
Thus, if you are not sure if the last mercurial command was a hg ci, don't use hg rollback.
Change any other commit message
You can use the mq extension, which is distributed with Mercurial, to change the commit message of any commit.
This approach is only useful when there aren't already cloned repositories in the public that contain the changeset you want to rename because doing so alters the changeset hash of it and all following changesets.
That means that you have to be able to remove all existing clones that include the changeset you want to rename, or else pushing/pulling between them wouldn't work.
To use the mq extension you have to explicitly enable it, e.g. under UNIX check your ~/.hgrc, which should contain following lines:
[extensions]
mq=
Say that you want to change revision X - first qimport imports revisions X and following. Now they are registered as a stack of applied patches. Popping (qpop) the complete stack except X makes X available for changes via qrefresh. After the commit message is changed you have to push all patches again (qpop) to re-apply them, i.e. to recreate the following revisions. The stack of patches isn't needed any, thus it can be removed via qfinish.
Following demo script shows all operations in action. In the example the commit message of third changeset is renamed.
# test.sh
cd $(dirname $0)
set -x -e -u
echo INFO: Delete old stuff
rm -rf .hg `seq 5`
echo INFO: Setup repository with 5 revisions
hg init
echo '[ui]' > .hg/hgrc
echo 'username=Joe User <juser#example.org>' >> .hg/hgrc
echo 'style = compact' >> .hg/hgrc
echo '[extensions]' >> .hg/hgrc
echo 'mq=' >> .hg/hgrc
for i in `seq 5`; do
touch $i && hg add $i && hg ci -m "changeset message $i" $i
done
hg log
echo INFO: Need to rename the commit message on the 3rd revision
echo INFO: Displays all patches
hg qseries
echo INFO: Import all revisions including the 3rd to the last one as patches
hg qimport -r $(hg identify -n -r 'children(2)'):tip
hg qseries
echo INFO: Pop patches
hg qpop -a
hg qseries
hg log
hg parent
hg commit --amend -m 'CHANGED MESSAGE'
hg log
echo INFO: Push all remaining patches
hg qpush -a
hg log
hg qseries
echo INFO: Remove all patches
hg qfinish -a
hg qseries && hg log && hg parent
Copy it to an empty directory an execute it e.g. via:
$ bash test.sh 2>&1 | tee log
The output should include the original changeset message:
+ hg log
[..]
2 53bc13f21b04 2011-08-31 17:26 +0200 juser
changeset message 3
And the rename operation the changed message:
+ hg log
[..]
2 3ff8a832d057 2011-08-31 17:26 +0200 juser
CHANGED MESSAGE
(Tested with Mercurial 4.5.2)
In TortoiseHg, right-click on the revision you want to modify. Choose Modify History->Import MQ. That will convert all the revisions up to and including the selected revision from Mercurial changesets into Mercurial Queue patches. Select the Patch you want to modify the message for, and it should automatically change the screen to the MQ editor. Edit the message which is in the middle of the screen, then click QRefresh. Finally, right click on the patch and choose Modify History->Finish Patch, which will convert it from a patch back into a change set.
Oh, this assumes that MQ is an active extension for TortoiseHG on this repository. If not, you should be able to click File->Settings, click Extensions, and click the mq checkbox. It should warn you that you have to close TortoiseHg before the extension is active, so close and reopen.
EDIT: As pointed out by users, don't use MQ, use commit --amend. This answer is mostly of historic interest now.
As others have mentioned the MQ extension is much more suited for this task, and you don't run the risk of destroying your work. To do this:
Enable the MQ extension, by adding something like this to your hgrc:
[extensions]
mq =
Update to the changeset you want to edit, typically tip:
hg up $rev
Import the current changeset into the queue:
hg qimport -r .
Refresh the patch, and edit the commit message:
hg qrefresh -e
Finish all applied patches (one, in this case) and store them as regular changesets:
hg qfinish -a
I'm not familiar with TortoiseHg, but the commands should be similar to those above. I also believe it's worth mentioning that editing history is risky; you should only do it if you're absolutely certain that the changeset hasn't been pushed to or pulled from anywhere else.
Rollback-and-reapply is realy simple solution, but it can help only with the last commit. Mercurial Queues is much more powerful thing (note that you need to enable Mercurial Queues Extension in order to use "hg q*" commands).
I did it this way. Firstly, don't push your changes or you are out of luck. Grab and install the collapse extension. Commit another dummy changeset. Then use collapse to combine the previous two changesets into one. It will prompt you for a new commit message, giving you the messages that you already have as a starting point. You have effectively changed your original commit message.
One hack i use if the revision i want to edit is not so old:
Let's say you're at rev 500 and you want to edit 497.
hg export -o rev497 497
hg export -o rev498 498
hg export -o rev499 499
hg export -o rev500 500
Edit rev497 file and change the message. (It's after first lines preceded by "#")
hg import rev497
hg import rev498
hg import rev499
hg import rev500
There is another approach with the MQ extension and the debug commands. This is a general way to modify history without losing data. Let me assume the same situation as Antonio.
// set current tip to rev 497
hg debugsetparents 497
hg debugrebuildstate
// hg add/remove if needed
hg commit
hg strip [-n] 498
A little gem in the discussion above - thanks to #Codest and #Kevin Pullin.
In TortoiseHg, there's a dropdown option adjacent to the commit button. Selecting "Amend current revision" brings back the comment and the list of files. SO useful.