Subject: Re: Newbie: Restore messed up code from local or remote repository

From: Jan Hudec <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:46:21 +0100

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 00:22:43 -0800, gzoller wrote:
> 
> Hello -- Extreme Git Newbie
> 
> I have a project that is checked into a local git repository as well as
> pushed to a remote repository.
> 
> Through misadventure I've managed to screw up my working code and want to
> restore what I had from my last commit on either the local or remote
> repositories.

If you screwed up content of the index, you will need the 'reset' command.

> So I blew away my messed up working files and tried:
> 
> git checkout

I don't think it does anything without argument. With argument '.' this
restores working tree to the state in index (stage). So if you have that
screwed up too, it won't be enough.

> git pull -f /path/to/remote/repos

This is just
    git fetch -f /path/to/remote/repos
followed by
    git merge FETCH_HEAD
(or appropriate tracking branch if you have the remote and tracking branch
set up)

The former ensured the latest revision of remote repo is available. It will
not itself

> git fetch -f /path/to/remote/repos

See above.

> None of the above did the trick.  The two remote commands reported that
> everything was Already up-to-date! (even though I'd deleted a lot of local
> working files)
> 
> What am I missing?  How can I restore my previous state from last commit?

Yes, using combination of reset and checkout. First make sure the branch you
want to use is checked out (git status will tell you if you don't have the
git aware shell prompt installed).

Than run

   git reset --hard <the-commit-you-want-to-be-at>

That will unconditionally make the current branch point to the specified
commit and make both the index and the working tree match the content of the
commit.

If you don't want it to touch the working tree (so you can compare what you
had in the working tree with that commit), you'd use --mixed instead of
--hard. You can than use checkout to revert those changes -- see above.

-- 
						 Jan 'Bulb' Hudec <[email-masked]>