git-uncommit: Undo git commits to patch files, and reapply them.

git-uncommit does exactly what it says: it uncommits the last Git commit, saving the patch.

git-recommit applies back the last uncommitted patch; after the patch is applied, the patch file is deleted.

Example usage

Imagine you have just committed experimental changes to your branch, after much work.

$ git commit -m "Experimental changes"

You are unsatisfied with the result, but do not want to discard the work, so you run git-uncommit

$ git uncommit
Uncommit: 2edf199-experimental-changes.patch

This undoes your experimental commit and creates 2edf199-experimental-changes.patch.

You can undo in this way any number of commits; git-recommit can be used to apply the patches back.

To apply the last uncommitted patch:

$ git recommit

To run git-recommit with any saved patch file to reapply it in the order you want:

$ git recommit <patch-file>.patch

Patch files

Patch files can be readily edited, shared with others and applied in a new order.

The patches are created using git format-patch, and thus can also be applied using git am.

Readable file names, extracted from your commit messages, are given to the patch files created.

Comparison with related Git commands

git stash can sometimes be used for similar purposes as git-uncommit, the differences are:

• git stash operates on changes to the work tree or index, not already committed changes
• git stash does not create a patch file, but saves the changes in the Git archive

git reset HEAD^ can also be used to revert the last commit, however the changes are not saved to a patch file, they are either discarded or left in the index or work tree, depending on the options

STGit: a tool that can also be used to reorder or edit commits, the main differences are:

• STGit has a much more complex set of command
• STGit does not save patch files automatically

Installation

git-uncommit and git-recommit are stand-alone shell scripts, simply requiring Git to be installed.

In a Unix or Linux system, you can quickly install git-recommit and git-uncommit by copying the files to /usr/local/bin.

Installing uni2ascii will help git-uncommit create better filenames for patches, when your commit messages have non-ascii characters.

Author and licensing terms

Copyright (c) 2012, 2013, 2014 Michele Bini <michele.bini@gmail.com>

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the version 3 of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.