How to git cherry-pick a commit example

What is git cherry-pick?

According to the official git documentation, the goal of a cherry-pick is to “apply the changes introduced by some existing commit.” Essentially, a cherry-pick will look at a previous commit in the repository’s history and apply the changes that were part of that earlier commit to the current working tree. The definition is seemingly straight forward, yet in practice there is a great deal of confusion over what exactly happens when someone tries to git cherry-pick a commit, or even cherry-pick from another branch. This git cherry-pick example will eliminate that confusion.

A git cherry-pick example

We will begin this git cherry-pick example with a completely clean repository, which means first you will create a new folder, which we will name git cherry-pick tutorial, and then issuing a git init command from within it.

/c/ git cherry-pick tutorial
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in C:/ git cherry-picktutorial/.git/

With the git repository initialized, create five html files, and each time a you create a file, perform a commit. In each commit message, the commit number and the number of files in the working tree will be included as part of the commit message. In a subsequent step, where we cherry-pick a commit, it is one of these commit steps that will be chosen.

Here are the commands to create the five, alphabetically ordered .html files along with the git commands required to add each file independently to the git index and subsequently commit those files to the repository:

/c/ git cherry-pick tutorial
$ echo 'alpha' > alpha.html
$ git add . | git commit -m "1st commit: 1 file"

$ echo 'beta' > beta.html
$ git add . | git commit -m "2nd commit: 2 files"

$ echo 'charlie' > charlie.html
$ git add . | git commit -m "3rd commit: 3 files"

$ echo 'whip it' > devo.html
$ git add . | git commit -m "4th commit: 4 files"

$ echo 'Big Lebowski' > eagles.html
$ git add . | git commit -m "5th commit: 5 files"

A note on the echo command

The echo command will be used as a file creation shortcut. For those unfamiliar with this shortcut, echoing text and then specifiying a file name after the greater-than sign will create a new file with that name, containing the text that was echoed. So the following command will create a new file named agenda.html with the word devops contained within it:

$ echo 'devops' > agenda.html

Delete and commit before the cherry-pick

We will now delete all five recently created files to clear out the working directory. A subsequent commit will be needed here as well.

/c/ git cherry-pick tutorial
$ rm *.html
$ git add . | git commit -m "all deleted: 0 files"

To recap, five files were created, and each file created has a corresponding commit. And then all the files were deleted and a sixth commit was issued. A chronicling of this commit history can be concisely viewed in the reflog. Take special note of the hexadecimal  identifier on the third commit, which we will cherry-pick in a moment:

/c/ git cherry-pick tutorial
$ git reflog
189aa32 HEAD@{0}: commit: all deleted: 0 files
e6f1ac7 HEAD@{1}: commit: 5th commit:  5 files
2792e62 HEAD@{2}: commit: 4th commit:  4 files
60699ba HEAD@{3}: commit: 3rd commit:  3 files
4ece4c7 HEAD@{4}: commit: 2nd commit:  2 files
cc6b274 HEAD@{5}: commit: 1st commit:  1 file

What happens when we git cherry-pick a commit?

This is where the git cherry-pick example starts to get interesting. We need to git cherry-pick a commit, so let’s choose the third commit where the file named charlie.html was created. But before we do, ask yourself what you believe will happen after the command is issued. When we git cherry-pick a commit, will we get all of the files associated with that commit, which would mean alpha.html, beta.html and charlie.html will come back? Or will we get just one file back? Or will the attempt to git cherry-pick a commit fail since all of the files associated with the commit have been deleted from our workspace?

The git cherry-pick command

Here is the command to git cherry-pick commit number 60699ba:

/c/ git cherry-pick tutorial (master)
$ git cherry-pick 60699ba

[master eba7975] 3rd commit: 3 files
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
create mode 100644 charlie.html

As you can see, only one file was added to the working directory, namely charlie.html. The files that were added to the repository in prior commits were not added, which tends to be the expectation of many users. Many users believe that when you git cherry-pick a commit, all of the files that are part of that branch, at that time of the commit, will be brought into the working directory. This is obviously not the case. When you git cherry-pick a commit, only the change associated with that commit is re-applied to the working tree.

Here are the various options available when issuing a git cherry-pick for a commit.

A hidden git cherry-pick commit

It should also be noted that it’s not just the working tree that is updated. When you git-cherry-pick a commit, a completely new commit is created on the branch, as the following reflog command indicates:

/c/ git cherry-pick tutorial (master)
$ git reflog
eba7975 HEAD@{0}: cherry-pick: 3rd commit: 3 files
189aa32 HEAD@{1}: commit: all deleted: 0 files
e6f1ac7 HEAD@{2}: commit: 5th commit: 5 files
2792e62 HEAD@{3}: commit: 4th commit: 4 files
60699ba HEAD@{4}: commit: 3rd commit: 3 files
4ece4c7 HEAD@{5}: commit: 2nd commit: 2 files
cc6b274 HEAD@{6}: commit (initial): 1st commit: 1 file

When a developer encounters a problem in the repository, the ability to git cherry-pick a commit can be extremely helpful in fixing bugs and resolving problems in GitHub, which is why understanding how the command works and the impact it will have on the current development branch is pivotal. Hopefully, with this git cherry-pick example under your belt, you will have the confidence needed to use the command to resolve problems in your own development environment.