We all know the common Git commands which we use everyday, like commit, push, pull etc.

Here are 10 less known commands which can be very useful.

1⃣ Undo a git rebase

You did a rebase & now you want to undo it. Do git reflog and find the point where you want to go. (Ex: HEAD@{10}) You will find something like the below.

git reflog
<sha> HEAD@{9}: rebase: action
<sha> HEAD@{10}: commit: action

HEAD@{9} is the point where rebase was done. So to revert that, we have to do a hard reset to the previous point.

Use the value to do a hard reset.

git reset --hard HEAD@{10}

The rebase you did is undone.

2⃣ Hunt a mysterious bug in your git history

This command uses a binary search algorithm to find which commit in your project’s history introduced a bug. You use it by first choosing a "bad" commit that is known to contain the bug, and a "good" commit that is known to be clean, before the bug was introduced. Git bisect picks a commit between those two points and asks you whether the selected commit is "good" or "bad". It continues narrowing down the range until it finds the exact commit that introduced the change.

git bisect

3⃣ Modify the commit message of a specific commit

git rebase -i head~2

The above command display's interactive rebase for the last 2 commits from head. Choose the number based on where your commit lies from head. If it is the 2th commit, choose head~2. You will get something like below

pick <sha> <commit message>
pick <sha> <commit message>

Change the command to edit instead of pick from the above, corresponding to the commit you want to modify

pick <sha> <commit message>
edit <sha> <commit message>

Now go ahead & save and the rebase will stop at the 2nd commit. You can amend the commit to change the commit message. Do git rebase --continue to finish the rebase.

git commit --amend
git rebase --continue

4⃣ Amend last commit

This comes in very handy if you want to change the commit message of the last commit. It can also be used to add new changes to the previous commit, instead of creating a new commit.

git commit --amend

5⃣ Recover a dropped stash

You have dropped a stash, but now you want it back. If you know the hash of the dropped stash you can do the below to retrieve it.

git stash apply $stash_hash

When you drop a stash, a hash of it is printed on the screen. If you haven't closed your terminal, you can locate it by scrolling to the top of your terminal window. If you can't find it, execute the below command.

gitk --all $( git fsck --no-reflog | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' )

This will open gitk (git gui). To spot stash commits, look for commit messages that look like this.

WIP on somebranch: commithash Some old commit message

Once you know the hash of the commit you want, you can apply it as a stash

git stash apply $stash_hash

6⃣ Copy a file from one branch to another branch

If you want to copy an entire file from one branch into another branch, do the below

git checkout bugfix README.md

bugfix is the source branch where the file README.md is located.

Execute the above command from the branch (destination), where you want the file to be copied.

7⃣ Display the changes in a particular commit or a stash

git show <sha>
git show stash{0}

8⃣ Get the number of commits (Commit count)

To get the count for a specific revision

git rev-list --count <revision>

For example git rev-list --count main will display the commit count in main branch.

To get the count across all branches

git rev-list --all --count

9⃣ Revert a specific commit

Get the of the commit you want to revert and do this.

git revert <sha>

🔟 Rename a local branch

If you want to rename a branch that is different from the current branch you are in, do this

git branch -m <oldname> <newname>

If you want to rename the current branch you are in, you can do

git branch -m <newname>