This is a Reference Page: Reference pages are collections of short bits of information that are useful to look up but not long or interesting enough to justify having their own dedicated post.

This page covers how to do some things in Git.

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Table of Contents

• Use Vim for commits
• Rename Branch
• Roll Back Merge
  • Option 1: Abort the merge
  • Option 2: Reset to the last commit
• Delete a File From Git History
  • If you don't push with --force

Use Vim for commits

Ugh, Nano. Kidding, but seriously here's how to use Vim instead.

git config --global core.editor "vim"

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Rename Branch

# Check out the branch to rename
git checkout development
# Rename the branch
git branch -m master
# Push the change
git push origin :development master

If you're using BitBucket and it fails to delete the branch, it might be set as your MAIN branch. You need to change that before it can be deleted. You can change it in the settings page.

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Roll Back Merge

If you do a git merge and its really ugly, you might want to undo that.

First you did the commit

git checkout master
git merge --squash development

Then you got a TON of CONFLICT messages and a really dirty state.

Option 1: Abort the merge

This one's my preference. There might be a few ~ files left over to rm manually.

git merge --abort

Option 2: Reset to the last commit

First, get the commit right before this one from git log

git log -n 1

Copy the commit hash

git reset --hard <commit hash>

You may need to clean up some files after that.

extra Usually, the next thing you wanna do is try the merge again with --stattheirs, or

git merge --squash --strategy-option=theirs development

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Delete a File From Git History

It's important to note, as GitHub highlights in their documentation, if you've uploaded a secret password or something, you still need to change it.

The file I removed was called sqldata.json, and it was in my project root. From the project root, I ran:

git filter-branch --force --index-filter \
  "git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch sqldata.json" \
  --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

git push origin --force --all

If you don't push with --force

When I tried to push, though, I got an error. I'd forgotten to use --force.

To https://github.com/kylep/jsc2f.git
 ! [rejected]        master -> master (non-fast-forward)
 error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/kylep/jsc2f.git'
 hint: Updates were rejected because the tip of your current branch is behind
 hint: its remote counterpart. Integrate the remote changes (e.g.
 hint: 'git pull ...') before pushing again.
 hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.

Then, when I tried to pull, I got

From https://github.com/kylep/jsc2f
 + ca7d7cc...710d37b master     -> origin/master  (forced update)
 fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories

If you're getting errors like that, maybe you need to run push with --force.

git push origin --force --all