Git
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NAME

git-revert - Revert some existing commits

SYNOPSIS

git revert [--[no-]edit] [-n] [-m <parent-number>] [-s] [-S[<keyid>]] <commit>…​
git revert (--continue | --skip | --abort | --quit)

DESCRIPTION

Given one or more existing commits, revert the changes that the related patches introduce, and record some new commits that record them. This requires your working tree to be clean (no modifications from the HEAD commit).

Note: git revert is used to record some new commits to reverse the effect of some earlier commits (often only a faulty one). If you want to throw away all uncommitted changes in your working directory, you should see git-reset[1], particularly the --hard option. If you want to extract specific files as they were in another commit, you should see git-restore[1], specifically the --source option. Take care with these alternatives as both will discard uncommitted changes in your working directory.

See "Reset, restore and revert" in git[1] for the differences between the three commands.

OPTIONS

<commit>…​

Commits to revert. For a more complete list of ways to spell commit names, see gitrevisions[7]. Sets of commits can also be given but no traversal is done by default, see git-rev-list[1] and its --no-walk option.

-e
--edit

With this option, git revert will let you edit the commit message prior to committing the revert. This is the default if you run the command from a terminal.

-m parent-number
--mainline parent-number

Usually you cannot revert a merge because you do not know which side of the merge should be considered the mainline. This option specifies the parent number (starting from 1) of the mainline and allows revert to reverse the change relative to the specified parent.

Reverting a merge commit declares that you will never want the tree changes brought in by the merge. As a result, later merges will only bring in tree changes introduced by commits that are not ancestors of the previously reverted merge. This may or may not be what you want.

See the revert-a-faulty-merge How-To for more details.

--no-edit

With this option, git revert will not start the commit message editor.

--cleanup=<mode>

This option determines how the commit message will be cleaned up before being passed on to the commit machinery. See git-commit[1] for more details. In particular, if the <mode> is given a value of scissors, scissors will be appended to MERGE_MSG before being passed on in the case of a conflict.

-n
--no-commit

Usually the command automatically creates some commits with commit log messages stating which commits were reverted. This flag applies the changes necessary to revert the named commits to your working tree and the index, but does not make the commits. In addition, when this option is used, your index does not have to match the HEAD commit. The revert is done against the beginning state of your index.

This is useful when reverting more than one commits' effect to your index in a row.

-S[<keyid>]
--gpg-sign[=<keyid>]
--no-gpg-sign

GPG-sign commits. The keyid argument is optional and defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space. --no-gpg-sign is useful to countermand both commit.gpgSign configuration variable, and earlier --gpg-sign.

-s
--signoff

Add a Signed-off-by trailer at the end of the commit message. See the signoff option in git-commit[1] for more information.

--strategy=<strategy>

Use the given merge strategy. Should only be used once. See the MERGE STRATEGIES section in git-merge[1] for details.

-X<option>
--strategy-option=<option>

Pass the merge strategy-specific option through to the merge strategy. See git-merge[1] for details.

--rerere-autoupdate
--no-rerere-autoupdate

After the rerere mechanism reuses a recorded resolution on the current conflict to update the files in the working tree, allow it to also update the index with the result of resolution. --no-rerere-autoupdate is a good way to double-check what rerere did and catch potential mismerges, before committing the result to the index with a separate git add.

--reference

Instead of starting the body of the log message with "This reverts <full-object-name-of-the-commit-being-reverted>.", refer to the commit using "--pretty=reference" format (cf. git-log[1]). The revert.reference configuration variable can be used to enable this option by default.

SEQUENCER SUBCOMMANDS

--continue

Continue the operation in progress using the information in .git/sequencer. Can be used to continue after resolving conflicts in a failed cherry-pick or revert.

--skip

Skip the current commit and continue with the rest of the sequence.

--quit

Forget about the current operation in progress. Can be used to clear the sequencer state after a failed cherry-pick or revert.

--abort

Cancel the operation and return to the pre-sequence state.

EXAMPLES

git revert HEAD~3

Revert the changes specified by the fourth last commit in HEAD and create a new commit with the reverted changes.

git revert -n master~5..master~2

Revert the changes done by commits from the fifth last commit in master (included) to the third last commit in master (included), but do not create any commit with the reverted changes. The revert only modifies the working tree and the index.

DISCUSSION

While git creates a basic commit message automatically, it is strongly recommended to explain why the original commit is being reverted. In addition, repeatedly reverting reverts will result in increasingly unwieldy subject lines, for example Reapply "Reapply "<original-subject>"". Please consider rewording these to be shorter and more unique.

CONFIGURATION

Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from the git-config[1] documentation. The content is the same as what’s found there:

revert.reference

Setting this variable to true makes git revert behave as if the --reference option is given.

SEE ALSO

git-cherry-pick[1]

GIT

Part of the git[1] suite

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