Git commands

This post records some powerful git commands which I was not familiar with.

Merge a specific commit to another branch

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# Merge a commit to current branch
git cherry-pick COMMIT_ID

# Merge commits in a range(without start commit)
git cherry-pick START_COMMIT_ID..END_COMMIT_ID

# Merge commits in a range(with start commit)
git cherry-pick START_COMMIT_ID^..END_COMMIT_ID

In the commands above, the first 6 chars of START_COMMIT_ID and END_COMMIT_ID are enough.

For example, commandgit cherry-pick 496986^...acc9bb is same as git cherry-pick 49698603a9c7d1dfdfef0505b52ab2cd4f7ed1a7^...acc9bb290a39275b59cb18e5eb661563fbf08c43.

--patch

If you want to commit some specific changes, you can use --patch option:

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git add --patch <filename>

--patch(or -p for short) is a powerful option, which allows you to pick your interested changes in a file or a commit.

If you use --patch or -p, the system will ask you whether to stage changes at every chunk:

Apply this hunk to index and worktree [y,n,q,a,d,j,J,g,/,e,?]?

The explanation of those options:

y - apply this hunk to index and worktree
n - do not apply this hunk to index and worktree
q - quit; do not apply this hunk or any of the remaining ones
a - apply this hunk and all later hunks in the file
d - do not apply this hunk or any of the later hunks in the file
g - select a hunk to go to
/ - search for a hunk matching the given regex
j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
e - manually edit the current hunk
? - print help

The most commonly used options are y(accept this chunk) and n(ignore this chunk).