Git merge previous commit from the same branch

Question

Currently my brach is in state

A-B-C

what I want is

A-B-C-D

where D = A + C (take both changes)

I tried cherry picking A but it states nothing to commit, working tree clean.

Answer 1

Even for the same branch, you can use git cherry-pick to apply a previous version to the HEAD version.

And for the reason why git shows "nothing to commit, working tree clean" when you cherry-pick commit A, that's because changes on commit A is same as commit C . And you can double check by the command:

git diff <commitA> <commitC>

There will show no differences between the two commits.

And you do not need to add a new commit D since commit C already meet what you want.

---

Or if you want to reset to commit A or to the new version based on commit A , then you can use git reset command instead:

• Use git reset --hard A to reet to the version for commit A directly;
• Use git reset --soft A (or git reset A use --mixed option by default), git stash and git pop to resolve coflict manually and keep the version you need based on commit A .

Answer 2

You already have both A and C changes right? So if your current state is ABC and you want it to be ABCD where D = A + C , it does not makes any sense coz you already have A and C in your state.

Thus, when you are even cherry-picking, there is no "change".

I hope that answers your question :)