Rolling back to an old commit in a public Git repository
This article explains how we can roll back a public Git repository to an old commit. When using Git version control, we can go back to any desired point.
Without further ado, let’s get into today’s agenda.
Rolling back to an old commit in a public Git repository
As always, we will use an example to explain this concept.
We have a Git repository whose commit history is shown below.
At this point in our repository, HEAD is at commit e65841a . We can also refer to it as HEAD@{0}.
If we want to rollback three commits, such that HEAD is at commit 7c5a7dbHEAD@{3} , i.e. , how would we go about doing it?
We could run the git reset command, but this is a public repository. It is not recommended to use the command in a public repository git reset.
You may end up disrupting the timeline of your project.
Remember that
git resetthe command will cancel the commits specified on the command line.
A safer and more concise way is to use git checkoutthe command. Here is the simple syntax of the command.
$ git checkout <SHA-1>
In our example, we will run:
$ git checkout 7c5a7db .
Note the dot at the end of the command .. We instruct Git to apply the changes to the entire working tree.
Always run this command at the root of your project; otherwise, it will only take effect in the subdirectory you checked in.
This does not remove commits after the specified commit; instead, it updates all affected files on the working tree.
We can try out the code and commit the changes. After committing the changes, let's check our commit history to verify our situation.
There you have it. Our commit is still intact, but there is a new commit, the rollback.
After commit, the affected files should be HEAD@{4}identical to those in .
In short, public repositories need to be very careful when rolling back to a specific commit. Avoid using git reset --hardthe command, and use git checkoutthe command instead.
It's safer and cleaner.
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