Modifying A Previous Commit From Git Tower

Question

I have a local repository that I need to go back to and change what the commit was. The reason I need to do this is because in the commit I had added a file that was deleted to the commit and that is not what I want to do after all. I want to keep it in there with the original name.

The following explaination is working off my development branch locally for my local repository.

The initial commit was all the files in the default installation of Laravel 5.2. I have always been told to change the .env.example file to .env however what I wasn't aware of it is also a good idea to include this file like it is so that if someone were to fork it then they know what environment variables they need to include in the application.

In my second commit I had renamed the file to just .env however for the development branch I would like to keep the file in the development branch.

How can I go back to that second commit and remove the fact I had deleted that file?

Answer 1

OK, so let's say the file is called filename and the commit where you deleted it is abc123. Run the following: git rebase -1 abc123~. This will pop up your editor with all your commits starting with abc123. On the first line, change "pick" to "edit", then close your editor. Git will replay abc123, then stop. At that point, recover your file with git checkout head~ -- /path/to/filename, then amend the commit with git commit --amend -C head. Git will then replay the rest of your commits, and you should be fine.

Answer 2

To modify the most recent commit

git commit --amend

To modify previous commits, and/or more than one

git rebase

Both of these are well documented elsewhere and a quick search or git help will show you the documentation.