Git switching between commits

Question

I read on here and searched a lot but didn't find the answer, so Is there a way to switch between commits like you do with branches.Let's say I have these commits: a;b;c where c is my last commit, can I switch back to commit a? Or you have to do a git diff and modify the files manually?

A branch _is_ a commit (with a symbolic name, but a commit nevertheless) — fge, Jan 07 '12 at 22:00
possible duplicate of [How can I switch my git repository to a particular commit](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4940054/how-can-i-switch-my-git-repository-to-a-particular-commit) — , Jul 20 '13 at 20:18

Carl Norum · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-07T19:29:17.207

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Just type git checkout a. Or perhaps more usefully, git checkout -b mybranch a, to checkout a as a new branch mybranch.

If you want to revert b and c, you can use git revert, or to remove them entirely from your current branch's history, you could git rebase -i a and throw them out.

Even if you were going to use git diff, you wouldn't have to do anything manually. Check out git format-patch, git apply, and git am to automate creating and applying patches.

edited Jan 07 '12 at 19:29

answered Jan 07 '12 at 19:21

Carl Norum

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So I guess that it's not possibile to switch between commits, only if you create branches and than switch between them? I'm right? – Uffo Jan 07 '12 at 19:37
Or I can do `git revert b(which stand for the commit ID)` ? – Uffo Jan 07 '12 at 19:39
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There's also `git reset --hard`. – svick Jan 07 '12 at 19:40
@svick - good idea, much better than mine I think... must have slipped my mind while writing. – Carl Norum Jan 07 '12 at 20:06
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@Uffo - yes that's correct. But depending on what you want to do, that may or may not be a good plan. – Carl Norum Jan 07 '12 at 20:06

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 07 '12 at 19:29

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You can create a branch from the revision you want to work from. The revision number can be seen using

   git log

Branch out from the previous revision

 git branch -f branchname rev

answered Jan 07 '12 at 19:29

Shraddha

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This is good just in case you have created branches, but not when you have only the master branch and you want to switch between commits I guess – Uffo Jan 07 '12 at 19:35
You can force your master branch to point to older revision. Use the master as the branchname – Shraddha Jan 07 '12 at 19:44

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 08 '12 at 06:10

git uses the definition of a commitish. git defines a commitish as:

commit-ish

Indicates a commit or tag object name. A command that takes a commit-ish argument ultimately wants to operate on a commit object but automatically dereferences tag objects that point at a commit.

This seems slightly incomplete as branches are also often treated as commit-ish.

Basically, you can checkout anything that has a sha-1 hash.

Git switching between commits

3 Answers3

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