Typically when I work on code changes I try to keep things to a single commit. This makes it so I won’t need to squash my commits into one (you gotta keep that history clean). It even makes updating pull-requests rather easy with a force push. I have seen many people be befuddled by this kind of workflow. Hopefully this post and the examples within will help future developers who run into problems.
My workflow for such a thing is as follows:
# do some code stuff git checkout -b feature_branch vi files.ext git commit -a #first commit vi files.ext git commit -a --amend # second commit git push origin feature_branch # initial push # people find something up with the PR # fix the PR vi files.ext git commit -a --amend #fix the thing git push origin feature_branch -f # final push
Note: I don’t use the single commit workflow for large changes
I recently ran into a situation where it was appropriate to split the commit into lots of very tiny commits and PR each one separately. It took a little thinking but the solution I came up with worked for me.
Splitting the commit
Assuming I have already made the PR and it was decided that I had to split that commit.
- Find the SHA of your commit with
git log
Your commit SHA should be the top, copy it now.
- Reset to the previous commit (master in this case):
git reset --hard origin/master
Your commit is gone! Oh no! Just kidding the SHA still works.
- Cherry-pick your commit back onto the branch but do not make a commit (with
-n
):git cherry-pick SHA -n
Now your changes are staged on top of origin/master
and not committed.
- Unstage the files:
git reset
Now all your changes are unstaged and need to be added again.
- Create your commits ensuring you add just the files you want:
git add filename.ext
If you only add the files you want in a commit, when you make the commit it’ll only contain those changes.
- Commit your changes without using
-a
:git commit
- Make a new branch to push
git checkout -b mini_feature_branch
- Push your new branch
git push origin mini_feature_branch
Repeat steps 5 through 8 until you have no more files to stage!