How do I skip a patch when cherry-picking multiple?

Question

I've begun cherry-picking with a command such as the following:

git cherry-pick A B C D

Lets say patches A and B have some merge conflicts but I eventually fix them all and git cherry-pick --continue. When I finally get to C I realise the same code must have already been applied and now the patch is empty.

I have the option of git cherry-pick --allow-empty but this would leave an empty commit in my history which I don't want. Ideally I'd like to skip just this one patch (C). However there is no git cherry-pick --skip. I could git cherry-pick --abort but that would lose all my work with A and B.

As a workaround I could accept the empty, remember which one it was and then remove it with a git rebase -i B after finishing the cherry-pick. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

With Git 2.23 (Q3 2019), "git cherry-pick/revert" learned a new "--skip" action.

So in your case: git cherry-pick --skip on C.

See commit dcb500d, commit de81ca3, commit 265ab48, commit 918d1e6, commit 6a1f904 (02 Jul 2019) by Rohit Ashiwal (r1walz).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit d97c62c, 19 Jul 2019)}

cherry-pick/revert: add --skip option

git am or rebase have a --skip flag to skip the current commit if the user wishes to do so.

During a cherry-pick or revert a user could likewise skip a commit, but needs to use 'git reset' (or in the case of conflicts 'git reset --merge'), followed by 'git (cherry-pick | revert) --continue' to skip the commit.
This is more annoying and sometimes confusing on the users' part.

Add a --skip option to make skipping commits easier for the user and to make the commands more consistent.

Update the advice messages, to tell users about this less cumbersome way of skipping commits.

So instead of seeing:

Otherwise, please use 'git reset

   If you wish to skip this commit, use:

   git reset

You will see:

 Otherwise, please use 'git cherry-pick --skip

 and then use:

   git cherry-pick --continue 

---

The mechanism to prevent "git commit" from making an empty commit or amending during an interrupted cherry-pick was broken during the rewrite of "git rebase" in C, which has been corrected with Git 2.27 (Q2 2020).

See commit 5b7a64d (06 Dec 2019) by Johannes Schindelin (dscho).
See commit 430b75f, commit 901ba7b, commit 8d57f75, commit 21b11c6, commit f028d66, commit 780308d (06 Dec 2019) by Phillip Wood (phillipwood).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit f085189, 25 Mar 2020)}

commit: give correct advice for empty commit during a rebase

^{Original-patch-by: Johannes Schindelin
Signed-off-by: Phillip Wood}

In dcb500dc16c ("cherry-pick/revert: advise using --skip", 2019-07-02, Git v2.23.0-rc0 -- merge listed in batch #6), git commit learned to suggest to run git cherry-pick --skip when trying to cherry-pick an empty patch.

However, it was overlooked that there are more conditions than just a git cherry-pick when this advice is printed (which originally suggested the neutral git reset): the same can happen during a rebase.

Let's suggest the correct command, even during a rebase.

While at it, we adjust more places in builtin/commit.c that incorrectly assumed that the presence of a CHERRY_PICK_HEAD meant that surely this must be a cherry-pick in progress.

Note: we take pains to handle the situation when a user runs a git cherry-pick during a rebase.
This is quite valid (e.g. in an exec line in an interactive rebase).
On the other hand, it is not possible to run a rebase during a cherry-pick, meaning: if both rebase-merge/ and sequencer/ exist or CHERRY_PICK_HEAD and REBASE_HEAD point to the same commit , we still want to advise to use git cherry-pick --skip.

Answer 2

You can quit the cherry-pick in progress with git cherry-pick --quit. After that A and B should be still in your branch and you continue with git cherry-pick D.