How to make a small fix of an old commit when I haven't pushed yet?

Question

For example one commit I have added a .gitignore file. I have done some work after that, but now realized that I should have add one more folder that I should ignore at that time.

mybranch HEAD 1: Much work 2: Much work 3: Add .gitignore origin/master 4: Others have this

I do not want to make a new commit that says "Edit .gitignore" but rather go back and fix that. Since I haven't pushed my commits to others yet I would like to tidy up my commits as much as possible.

I figured I might have to check out that commit and amend it. Then how can I repeat the newer commits? Doing merge one by one to the final point would make me ended up on a new branch. I would like to end up like the starting point minus the small change.

Answer 1

You might want to use rebase and squash commits into one.

Assuming you want to squash your last two commits into one commit:

$ git rebase -i HEAD~3

Now you should have something like:

pick ccccccc third commit
pick bbbbbbb second commit
pick aaaaaaa first commit

# Rebase ...... onto ......
#
# Commands:
#  p, pick = use commit
#  r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
#  e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
#  s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
#  f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
#  x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
#
# If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST.
#
# However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted.
#
# Note that empty commits are commented out

Replace pick with squash (or simply s ) on whatever commits you want to squash into one.

For more detailed explanation, go through the link posted above.

Answer 2

What you can do is introduce a new commit, with the change to .gitignore , and then move and squash it into the old commit.

After the new commit you'll have

HEAD 1: .gitignore edit
2: Much work
3: Much work
4: Add .gitignore
...

Then if you run git rebase -i HEAD~4 you'll be presented with the commits in an editor and have to choose which to keep. You can move the new [1] to right after [4], and set it to squash instead of pick , which would make it "meld into previous commit".

You can read more about this process here .