Edit a commit and bring all the changes back to unstaged

[ruudk]

I'm new to Lazygit and coming from Tower. There, I can right click a commit and click edit. It will then bring me back to before this commit, with all the changes from the commit being in my working copy as changed files. I can then stage some files, and commit them. The commit is prefilled with the original commit (that I'm editing). But if I make changes, it will use that. The remaining changes in my working copy I can commit again, or discard. Basically, with editing you can split a commit or rework a commit message or the files associated to the commit.

But how can this be done with Lazygit? If I edit a commit, it brings me back to AFTER the commit, with the changes being committed already.

[stefanhaller]

Tower's approach seems to be inspired by how you would have to do this with command-line git, where you perform an interactive rebase and then git reset --mixed HEAD^ or something like that to undo your last commit and re-commit it (I'm fuzzy on the details now, didn't have to do that since I switched to lazygit 😄).

This is an arcane workflow that we shouldn't try to follow. Lazygit has much better tools for this; look into custom patches. For splitting a commit, you press enter on the commit to see its files, "stage" the ones that you want to split out (you can also stage individual hunks by pressing enter on files), then bring up the custom patch menu (ctrl-p) and choose "Move patch into new commit". No interactive rebase involved. The custom patch feature also lets you move parts of a commit to a different commit, or drop changes from a commit, and other useful things.

rework a commit message or the files associated to the commit.

This is even simpler of course, no custom patches needed for this. Reworking a commit message is easy by selecting the commit and pressing r for reword; changing the files in a commit can be done by selecting the commit and pressing shift-A to amend it with your current changes. This can be done either outside of a rebase, or after pressing e on the commit you want to change; sometimes the latter is needed if the changes would otherwise conflict with later commits.

[ruudk]

Thanks for taking the time to answer this in detail.

The points you mention, I do understand. That works great.

How would you deal with the following: you have 3 commits A, B, C.
You realize that there are code formatting issues introduced in A. I want to go back to A, and run my code formatter, and then recommit that as A.

Or, you realize that you want to introduce a commit between A, and B, C. I know I can commit it as D, and then move it down twice. But sometimes, it's easier to "go back in time", forget about what's changed after (in B, C) and commit as if only A happened. Then exit the edit (rebase) and see B, C applied.

[stefanhaller]

How would you deal with the following: you have 3 commits A, B, C. You realize that there are code formatting issues introduced in A. I want to go back to A, and run my code formatter, and then recommit that as A.

Select A, hit e. Run your formatter; hit shift-A to amend, and continue the rebase. You are likely to get conflicts in B and/or C; resolve them using "incoming" for all. (Now this last thing is something that's not very convenient in lazygit yet, we might improve this at some point).

Or, you realize that you want to introduce a commit between A, and B, C. I know I can commit it as D, and then move it down twice. But sometimes, it's easier to "go back in time", forget about what's changed after (in B, C) and commit as if only A happened. Then exit the edit (rebase) and see B, C applied.

Super easy: select A, press e, make your D commit, continue the rebase.

[ruudk]

Cool, maybe I was overthinking this! Will try it out. Thanks!