git checkout commit and delete newer commits

Question

I have made bad commits in the github and i want to do the following things:

checkout to an old commit from a different branch than master
make this commit my last commit(delete those after this)
make this branch as master branch and delete all the others branches
merge master branch to a new one

Is it possible to do this?

This [post](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448919/how-can-i-remove-a-commit-on-github) might be of some assistance. — Stephen Tetreault, Feb 27 '13 at 19:27

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 27 '13 at 20:17

6

The key command is:

git checkout -B master aSHA1

If you know where you want to reset your master branch, that is the way to do it in one line.

From git checkout man page:

-B <new_branch>

Creates the branch <new_branch> and start it at <start_point>;
if it already exists, then reset it to <start_point>. This is equivalent to running "git branch" with "-f";

Then you can force push it:

git push --force

That will reset origin/master (the master branch on the GitHub side) to your old SHA1.

answered Feb 27 '13 at 20:17

VonC

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this also means that i can restore the master to its initial state? – user2065529 Feb 27 '13 at 20:42
@user2065529 you can reset it to any previous commit (from the `master` branch) you want, yes. – VonC Feb 27 '13 at 21:08

git checkout commit and delete newer commits

1 Answers1