Git Cherry Pick

Jan 1st, 2021 - written by Kimserey with .

Git cherry-pick is a command used to apply changes from an existing commit. In this post we’ll look at some example where cherry picking can be useful.

• Cherry Pick a Specific Commit
• Resolve Cherry Pick Conflict

Cherry Pick a Specific Commit

Let’s take the following example where we have a master branch an my-branch which has 3 commits.

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    E--F--G my-branch
   /
A--B--C--D master

Cherry picking allows us to bring a speicifc commit into a branch. Here if we want to bring F into master, we can start by identifying the commit hash of F:

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❯ git --no-pager log -10 --oneline --graph --all

* d75c3cb (my-branch) G
* b9a83bb F
* 5a78f04 E
| * 421b367 (HEAD -> master) D
| * d2a3dae C
|/  
* 498420c B
* 202d11a A

So we can see that F is b9a83bb, if we want to look at the commit, we can use show:

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❯ git show b9a83bb

Then to bring it into master we can do:

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❯ git checkout master
❯ git cherry-pick b9a83bb

Which will then result in a new commit added:

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    E--F--G my-branch
   /
A--B--C--D--F' master

By default the commit message will be added to F'. If we want to change the commit message we can use -e:

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❯ git cherry-pick -e b9a83bb 

That will allow us to edit the commit message before committing.

Resolve Cherry Pick Conflict

If for any reason, there is a conflict bringing the commit, git will stop for conflict resolution.

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❯ git cherry-pick b9a83bb
Auto-merging b.md
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in b.md
error: could not apply b9a83bb... Cherry pick this
hint: after resolving the conflicts, mark the corrected paths
hint: with 'git add <paths>' or 'git rm <paths>'
hint: and commit the result with 'git commit'

Git status will give us a hint on the possible commands forward:

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❯ git status
On branch master
You are currently cherry-picking commit b9a83bb.
  (fix conflicts and run "git cherry-pick --continue")
  (use "git cherry-pick --skip" to skip this patch)
  (use "git cherry-pick --abort" to cancel the cherry-pick operation)

Unmerged paths:
  (use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution)
        both modified:   b.md

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

• --continue to continue after having resolve conflict and added to index
• --skip to skip the current commit if we are cherry picking multiple commits
• --abort to completely abort the cherry picking

External Sources

• Git Cherry Pick