MEPX
Chapter 10 of 14All chapters
  1. 1What Git is
  2. 2The three places
  3. 3Committing
  4. 4History and diffs
  5. 5Branches
  6. 6Merging
  7. 7Conflicts
  8. 8Remotes
  9. 9Fetch, pull and push
  10. 10Undoing work
  11. 11Stashing
  12. 12Ignoring files
  13. 13Tags and releases
  14. 14Working with others

Chapter 10 of 14

Undoing work

Three commands with very different reach.

Restore, reset, revert

git restore throws away changes in a file. git reset moves the branch label, and with --hard it discards local changes for good. git revert undoes a commit by adding a new one.

  • On a shared branch, revert is the only safe option of the three.
  • Changes that were never committed cannot be recovered.

The reflog

git reflog records where your branch pointed recently, even after a reset. It is the closest thing Git has to an undo history for the commands themselves.