How to rebase only last two commits without the whole branch?

Question

I accidentally committed to a wrong branch. The graph looks like this

----o--o-----o (master)
     \
      \
       A--B--C--D (feature)

I want to move C and D to master without the changes in A and B. I want the graph to look like this

----o--o-----o (master)
     \        \
      \        C--D (other_feature)
       \
        A--B (feature)

is this possible? and how to do it also on remote?

Changes in A and B are not going to be merged so I don't care if the commits will be lost

Is the `feature` branch with commits `C` and `D` already published? — Tim Biegeleisen, Aug 22 '16 at 17:03

Code-Apprentice · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-22T17:15:02.537

25

Warning: The following git commands will rewrite the history of the feature branch. git rebase and git reset are dangerous because it can wreak havoc for anyone else who is using the feature branch.

First create the branch other_feature at the same commit as feature.

git checkout -b other_feature feature

Rebase the previous two commits onto master.

git rebase --onto master HEAD~2

Checkout feature.

git checkout feature

Reset feature to the commit where you want it.

git reset --hard HEAD~2

edited Aug 22 '16 at 17:15

answered Aug 22 '16 at 17:05

Code-Apprentice

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Warning: This answer _rewrites_ the history of the `feature` branch. While this may be OK for this particular problem, this course of action should be taken with caution in general, because it can wreak havoc for anyone else who is using the `feature` branch. – Tim Biegeleisen Aug 22 '16 at 17:10
@TimBiegeleisen Thanks for the warning. I have edited my answer with similar wording. – Code-Apprentice Aug 22 '16 at 17:13
For me, `feature` branch was unchanged, while only last two commits were rebased, so commits A and B stayed the same at a first glance (C and D stayed too, but I used `reset --hard `). Maybe there is some difference that's not apparent but it looks fine now... – Zygro Aug 22 '16 at 17:14
@Zygro As far as the commit history is concerned, my answer will solve your problem. See the warning in Tim Biegeleisen's comment and at the top of my edited post for potential pitfalls from this approach. – Code-Apprentice Aug 22 '16 at 17:16

Tim Biegeleisen · Answer 2 · 2018-01-25T23:10:40.997

2

The following answer presumes that your feature branch is already published to the remote. I would just cherry pick commits C and D from the feature branch onto the master branch, and then revert these two commits on feature:

git checkout master
git checkout -b other_feature
git cherry-pick <SHA-1 for C>
git cherry-pick <SHA-1 for D>

git checkout feature
git revert <SHA-1 for C>
git revert <SHA-1 for D>

edited Jan 25 '18 at 23:10

answered Aug 22 '16 at 17:05

Tim Biegeleisen

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Doesn't `git revert` create two new commits that "undo" the two previous commits? – Code-Apprentice Aug 22 '16 at 17:07
1

@Code-Apprentice The OP may not be aware that rewriting history of a published branch can cause problems. This is why I avoided rebasing and resetting in my answer. – Tim Biegeleisen Aug 22 '16 at 17:09
That's a good point. I should add a caveat to my answer. I usually assume that feature branches aren't used by other developers. – Code-Apprentice Aug 22 '16 at 17:10
Rather than cherry picking directly onto master, create an `other_feature` branch. – Code-Apprentice Jan 25 '18 at 18:37
@Code-Apprentice Your rebase --onto answer is for sure the way to go here, but using cherry pick is still a valid alternative. – Tim Biegeleisen Jan 25 '18 at 23:11
Yes, your solution is viable. For some reason I missed that you have `git checkout -b other_feature` and thought you were cherry picking directly to master. – Code-Apprentice Jan 26 '18 at 00:02

How to rebase only last two commits without the whole branch?

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