World 2: Undo Magic

Throw away a change

You will learn: how to throw away changes you don't want.

The problem

You edited index.html and broke it. Ctrl+Z can’t go back that far. Now what?

Watch

git restore index.html puts the file back to its last saved version. This is called .

Watch

~/diary $ git diff index.htmldiff --git a/index.html b/index.htmlindex a8ad0de..eca16c6 100644--- a/index.html+++ b/index.html@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@ <h1>My Diary</h1>-<p>Day 1: I learned Git.</p>+<p>oops oops oops</p>

⚠️ Danger: restore throws your changes away for good. Git never saved them, so there is no undo. Look first with git diff.

Try it

Throw away the broken index.html. Keep your style.css change.

Working folder

Staging area

Empty

Repository

3 save points
Add style
Add day 1 page
Add README

Hint

Type git restore index.html, then press Enter.

Predict

Now you run git restore style.css. What happens to your teal heading?

Check

~/diary $ rm README.md~/diary $ lsindex.html  style.css~/diary $ git restore README.md~/diary $ lsindex.html  README.md  style.css

Deleted a saved file by mistake? git restore brings it back. It is in a commit, so Git still has it.

You did it!

You can now throw away changes you don’t want. Carefully!

Go deeper (optional)

git restore copies from the box. If you staged the file, you get the staged version. git restore . restores every tracked file. Old guides use git checkout -- index.html. It does the same job.

~/diary $ git status -s M index.html M style.css~/diary $ git checkout -- index.html~/diary $ git status -s M style.css