How To Abort A Cherry-Pick In Git?
When using the git cherry-pick command, a developer may need to abort its operation. Luckily, this is very easy to do in Git.
The simplest way to abort a cherry-pick in Git is to use the --abort option:
bashgit cherry-pick --abort
This article will explain different ways of aborting a cherry-pick operation and their difference.
Let's get to it 😎.
Why would you need to abort a cherry-pick?
Cherry-picking means choosing a commit from a branch and applying it to another one.
When you run the cherry-pick command, it will do a merge on your code.
That merge can create conflicts.
To fix those merge conflicts, you can either:
- Fix them manually and run the git cherry-pick --continue command.
- Abort the cherry-pick.
How to abort a cherry-pick?
There are multiple ways to abort a cherry-pick.
1. Use the abort option.
The abort option completely undoes the cherry-picking operation.
To abort a cherry-pick and completely undo the operation, use:
bashgit cherry-pick --abort
2. Use the quit option.
The quit option cleans up the cherry-pick operation and doesn't touch anything else.
To abort a cherry-pick and keep the merged changes, use:
bashgit cherry-pick --quit
3. Use the git reset command.
Another way of clearing up a conflicted cherry-pick is to use the git reset merge command.
Cherry-Pick Abort VS Quit
The biggest difference between those two options is:
- The abort option cancels the operation and UNDOES any commits it has merged.
- The quit option cleans up the operation and KEEPS the already merged commits.
How to undo a cherry-pick?
Since a cherry-pick is very similar to a commit, you can uncommit it the same way you would a commit.
To undo a cherry-pick, use the git reset command:
bashgit reset --hard HEAD^
Note: Learn more about HEAD here.
Final thoughts
As you can see, aborting a cherry-pick in Git is very easy.
Just use the git cherry-pick command with the --abort option.
Although the git cherry-pick command is not the most well-known command, it is best to know how to use it in different scenarios for a complete picture.
Here are some other Git tutorials for you to enjoy:
- Revert multiple commits in Git
- Ignore the node_modules folder in Git
- Add an empty folder in Git
- Undo a rebase in Git