How to cancel a local git commit?

Question

My issue is I have changed a file e.g.: README, added a new line 'this for my testing line' and saved the file, then I issued the following commands:

git status  # On branch master # Changed but not updated: #   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed) #   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory) # #   modified:   README # no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")   git add README  git commit -a -m 'To add new line to readme' 

I didn't push the code to GitHub. Now I want to cancel this commit.

For this, I used

git reset --hard HEAD~1 

But I lost the newly added line 'this for my testing line' from the README file. This should not happen. I need the content to be there. Is there a way to retain the content and cancel my local commit?

Answer 1

Just use git reset without the --hard flag:

git reset HEAD~1 

PS: On Unix based systems you can use HEAD^ which is equal to HEAD~1. On Windows HEAD^ will not work because ^ signals a line continuation. So your command prompt will just ask you More?.

Answer 2

Use --soft instead of --hard flag:

git reset --soft HEAD^ 

It will remove the last local (unpushed) commit, but will keep changes you have done.