How do I stop a Git commit when VI is on the screen waiting for a commit message?

Question

I have asked Git to perform a commit from within git bash, It has brought up VI as it always does.

I now wish to cancel the commit, how do I prevent proceeding with the commit from this point?

Worth adding that you need to pres Esc prior to entering `:q!` to exit vim. — M_Merciless, Jun 24 '20 at 10:07

Eugene Yarmash · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-11T13:15:15.787

384

You have two options:

Provide an empty commit message. If it's a new commit and you haven't yet saved the message, you can simply use :q! (quit without saving). If you’ve already saved (or you're amending a previous commit), just delete the entire log message and save again. This can be done with ggdG + :wq in Vim.
Have the editor exit with a non-zero exit code. In Vim, you can use :cq (quit with an error code).

It's worth noting that you can always reset your working copy to the state it was in before the commit with git reset HEAD^.

edited May 11 '15 at 13:15

answered Dec 01 '10 at 11:21

Eugene Yarmash

128

:cq is the business. For some reason git ploughs on regardless if i use :q! – Sirex Dec 18 '12 at 22:27
3

git reset HEAD^ would discard local modifications – juanmf Jun 09 '17 at 23:00
4

:q! probably doesn't work because there is a predefined message already there, you are just editing it. – Papipo Aug 16 '17 at 13:16
1

Hiccup: If `git reset HEAD^` asks for more, your shell may interpret ^ as line continuation. Try `git reset "HEAD^"`, `git reset HEAD^^`, or `git reset HEAD~1` instead per this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14203952/git-reset-asks-more – Jake Stevens-Haas Aug 06 '19 at 16:22

score 104 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 30 '15 at 11:13

104

:q! does not work when amending a commit. It does not update the commit message, but it executes the amendment :-(
:cq completely aborts the amendment.

answered Mar 30 '15 at 11:13

Daniel Pinyol

2

I wish I could add another +1. I've been here multitudes of time when my amend picks up the wrong commit. – Wyrmwood Feb 04 '19 at 23:20
:q! actually saving changes makes me sad. Leaky abstraction – chillNZ May 15 '22 at 23:44

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 17 '15 at 08:53

To sum up:

When creating a new commit (i.e git commit) quit using :q!.
When amending (i.e. git commit --amend) remove the commit message (only the first few rows not beginning with a #) for example by holding v and using arrow keys to select it and then pressing Delete. Quit with :wq to apply changes! If you use :q! the changes will be lost and the previous commit message will be used.

When using VIM it's ok in both cases to quit with :cq - VIM will quit with an error code and the commit will be aborted.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 13 '21 at 15:29

All answers are trying to teach you a bit of vim

but if you really have a problem closing a vim

you can have much more problems with the edition

and the situation will be repeated on every interaction in git

so you'd like to change a git editor

git config --global core.editor nano

git config --global core.editor <your_editor>

or learn editors like vim or emascs.

4 Answers4