Git Update Commit Message

By  on  

One of my faults as a professional developer is that my commit messages aren't always as descriptive as they could be.  Sometimes I even notice a spelling error in them.  Bleh -- that's not cool, man.  When I do catch that my last commit message isn't good enough, I find the following git command useful:

The command below rewrites the message for the previous commit.  You can omit the -m and message to go into the commit shell instead.

git commit --amend -m "This is the new message"

Do realize, however, that performing this after you've pushed to a remote repo is considered bad as it rewrites history. If you haven't pushed, however, the command above is gold!

Recent Features

  • By
    CSS vs. JS Animation: Which is Faster?

    How is it possible that JavaScript-based animation has secretly always been as fast — or faster — than CSS transitions? And, how is it possible that Adobe and Google consistently release media-rich mobile sites that rival the performance of native apps? This article serves as a point-by-point...

  • By
    Create Namespaced Classes with MooTools

    MooTools has always gotten a bit of grief for not inherently using and standardizing namespaced-based JavaScript classes like the Dojo Toolkit does.  Many developers create their classes as globals which is generally frowned up.  I mostly disagree with that stance, but each to their own.  In any event...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Prevent Page Zooming in Mobile Browsers

    Ever since I got my iPhone, I've been more agreeable in going places that my fiancee wants to go. It's not because I have any interest in checking out women's shoes, looking at flowers, or that type of stuff -- it's because my iPhone lets...

  • By
    Introducing MooTools Dotter

    It's best practice to provide an indicator of some sort when performing an AJAX request or processing that takes place in the background. Since the dawn of AJAX, we've been using colorful spinners and imagery as indicators. While I enjoy those images, I am...

Discussion

  1. This is one of the things I do more frequently :-/

    The good thing is that, with amend, you can also include in the commit new changes (provided that you have added them to the staging area).

    The drawback is that it’s **bad** to amend a commit that has already been pushed to a remote repository.

  2. May I point you to an article of my own, in which I describe some more solutions on how to change commit messages:

    http://www.gamez.name/change-commit-message-git/

  3. Dorian Marchal

    Be careful, this command rewrites history and shouldn’t be used if you already pushed your last commit.

  4. And you are noticing it now? :D

    One thing to remember is HASH is changed on amending.

  5. And you are noticing it now? :D

    Well, one thing to notice is that HASH of that particular commit is rewritten when amending.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!