Amend comment message from older commits using SHA ID

Question

Let's assume i have 3 commits:

Added bar.txt     (3)
Second Commit     (2)
Initial Commit    (1)

How can i change the commit message from (2) by using its SHA ID? The commit was not pushed to the remote repository yet.

I tried: git commit --amend -m "Added foo.txt" 8457931

8457931 are the first 7 numbers from the SHA ID.

Reason why this is not a duplicate: I ask on how to change the commit message by using the SHA ID to point at the commit which i would like to change, unlike in the linked question.

Answer 1

Do an interactive rebase, it is described in https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Rewriting-History

git rebase -i HEAD~2

Mark all as 'pick'(just retain that commit) or 'reword' for changing message. Note that all these commits will be rewritten, so it's better not to go deeper than origin/HEAD points

EDIT: you need to rebase on parent of the commit in question (note the ~1 after sha)

git rebase --interactive <your_sha>~1

Now a file opens:

pick b35b85c second commit
pick 9cc745b Initial commit

Search the line where your target commit is and change pick to reword:

reword b35b85c second commit
pick 9cc745b Initial commit

Save the file. Now another file opens, delete the first line and replace it with your new commit message. Save the file. Done.