Can `git checkout HEAD^ -- ` revert a file in a commit?

Question

I am consider this question: Revert changes to a file in a commit

Can I just run git checkout HEAD^ -- <file> and then git add <file> and git commit to revert the change to a file in a commit?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, but note that git checkout first writes the file from the <tree-ish> argument to the index, then copies the updated index copy of the file to the work-tree:

git checkout HEAD^ -- <file>

Now <file> is the same in the index and work-tree, and matches the version in the commit found by HEAD^.

Hence:

and then git add <file>

is unnecessary, since this just copies the work-tree version into the index.¹ You can just do the commit.

---

¹The work-tree version already matches the index, and Git skips the copying. This is true even if you have modified a set of clean and/or smudge filters, or changed line-ending settings. In that particular case, where you want to force Git to re-clean the file on its way from work-tree to index, you must either trick Git into thinking that the work-tree file has changed:

touch <file>

or use the --renormalize option of git add.

Answer 2

Yes, you can do something like this:

git checkout HEAD -- <path>
git reset <path>
git add <path>
git commit