Move commits from master onto a branch using git

Question

I'm trying to learn how to use Git effectively and I'm wondering how I should (good practice/bad practice?) solve the following case:

Say I have the following chain of commits in master:

• Initial commit
• Commit 1
• Commit 2
• Commit 3

Then I realize that what's done in the last two commits is completely wrong and I need to start from Commit 1 again. Questions:

• How should I do that?
• Can I move Commit 2 and 3 to a separate branch to keep for future reference (say they weren't that bad after all) and continue working from Commit 1 on master?

Answer 1

git branch tmp            # mark the current commit with a tmp branch
git reset --hard Commit1  # revert to Commit1

The SO answer " What's the difference between 'git reset' and 'git checkout' in git? " is quite instructive for that kind of operation

A git reset --hard HEAD~2 would do the same thing (without needing to get back the SHA1 for Commit1 first).

Since Commit2 and Commit3 are still reference by a Git ref (here a branch), you can still revert to them anytime you want ( git checkout tmp ).

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Actually, Darien mentions in the comments (regarding moving Commit2 and Commit3 to another branch):

Accidentally committed to the wrong branch, this let me move it, did:

git checkout correctbranch
git rebase tmp
git branch -d tmp

This works here since the initial branch has been reset to Commit1 , which means the git rebase tmp will replay every commit after Commit1 (so here Commit2 and Commit3 ) to the new ' correctbranch '.