Question

I am working on a local branch VISS. Then I decided to check out a previous commit:

git checkout 98ea3c8042c39e

I made some important changes to the code. and then I committed again.

Now I need to go back to my branch VISS keeping these changes.

What should I do if I want to:

1. Go back to my VISS branch discarding what was done before checking out to a previous commit (98ea3c8042c39e).

2. Go back to my VISS branch merging the new changes with what I had done on the top of the VISS.

Answer 1

1. Go back to your branch and discard everything :

   git checkout VISS
   

   Your new commit atop 98ea3c will be left floating in the middle of nowhere, and will eventually be garbage collected by git.

   Conversely, if you are willing to make 98ea3c the top of VISS and discard what VISS is currently pointing to, do the following:

   git checkout VISS
   git reset --hard 98ea3c
   

2. Go back to VISS and merge your new changes on the top of it:

   # On the new commit you just made:
   git rebase VISS
   
   # Now take note of what the commit ID is.  Assume I got "abc123"; then:
   git checkout VISS
   git merge abc123
   

   You’ll now have VISS with the change as the latest commit, and no merge commit.