Revert changes to a file in a commit

Question

The cleanest way I've seen of doing this is described here

git show some_commit_sha1 -- some_file.c | git apply -R

Similar to VonC's response but using git show and git apply.

Assuming it is ok to change the commit history, here's a workflow to revert changes in a single file in an earlier commit:

For example, you want to revert changes in 1 file (badfile.txt) in commit aaa222:

aaa333 Good commit
aaa222 Problem commit containing badfile.txt
aaa111 Base commit

Rebase on the base commit, amend the problem commit, & continue.

1) Start interactive rebase:

git rebase -i aaa111

2) Mark the problem commit for edit in the editor by changing pick to e (for edit):

e aaa222
pick aaa333

3) Revert changes to the bad file:

git show -- badfile.txt | git apply -R

4) Add the changes & amend the commit:

git add badfile.txt
git commit --amend

5) Finish the rebase:

git rebase --continue

git revert is for all file contents within a commits.

For a single file, you can script it:

#!/bin/bash

function output_help {
    echo "usage: git-revert-single-file <sha1> <file>"
}

sha1=$1
file=$2

if [[ $sha1 ]]; then
git diff $sha1..$sha1^ -- $file | patch -p1
else
output_help
fi

(From the git-shell-scripts utilities from smtlaissezfaire)

---

Note:

another way is described here if you have yet to commit your current modification.

git checkout -- filename

git checkout has some options for a file, modifying the file from HEAD, overwriting your change.

---

Dropped.on.Caprica mentions in the comments:

You can add an alias to git so you can do git revert-file <hash> <file-loc> and have that specific file be reverted.
See this gist.

[alias]
  revert-file = !sh /home/some-user/git-file-revert.sh

Much simpler:

git reset HEAD^ path/to/file/to/revert

then

git commit --amend   

and then

git push -f

the file is gone and commit hash, message, etc is the same.

I would simply use the --no-commit option to git-revert and then remove the files you don't want reverted from the index before finally committing it. Here's an example showing how to easily revert just the changes to foo.c in the second most recent commit:

$ git revert --no-commit HEAD~1
$ git reset HEAD
$ git add foo.c
$ git commit -m "Reverting recent change to foo.c"
$ git reset --hard HEAD

The first git-reset "unstages" all files, so that we can then add back just the one file we want reverted. The final git-reset --hard gets rid of the remaining file reverts that we don't want to keep.