Git: how to revert the local edit before using git checkout <old-revision> <file>?

Question

Say I have a file file.txt , I've committed some revisions and now I've edited it in my working copy, I didn't stage or commit these edits.

Then I use git checkout <an-old-revision> file.txt , the file.txt goes back to an old commit.
Now I regret my checkout, how do I bring my edits back?

Answer 1

With git you cannot get these local changes back because you never committed/added or stashed them. If you use an IDE like Eclipse or IntelliJ Idea then the first thing i would check is if you can recover your changes via the local history of the file. If you do not use an IDE then a backup would be helpful.