Re: reverting changes

Thiago Farina [off-list ref] writes:

When I want to revert a change to a file that is already committed
what is the best way?

The way I found was:

$ git checkout HEAD /path/to/my/file
$ git reset HEAD /path/to/my/file

Is this the canonical/best way or there other (easier-faster) ways?

If the issue you are solving is:

  What I committed to path/to/my/file is in good state.  I then
  edited path/to/my/file but it turns out that I do not like what I
  did.  I want the version I committed back (perhaps to start over,
  perhaps to do nothing further).

then you can checkout the path out of the commit, i.e.

	git checkout HEAD path/to/my/file

is the canonical and best way.

But I am not sure if that is what you are asking with "want to
revert a change to a file that is already commited".  It can be
read:

    I started from one state, made changes and have already
    committed them.  These changes were bad ones that I regret, and
    I do not want them.

and if so, "git checkout HEAD path/to/my/file" will happily grab the
state after these bad changes are applied out of the commit.