Better git commit viewing and editing

README.md

I created these small git commands to help make exploring commits and editing them easier.

The first set of commands, git uc (Undo Commit) and git rc (Redo Commit), will undo a commit while saving the commit message and keeping the changes staged, so you can make changes to the commit and re-perform the commit while having the original commit message restored. Example:

$ git uc
...make edits to staged changes...
$ git rc
...update commit message, original one is loaded into editor...

git rc accepts any additional arguments that git commit will accept.

The second set of commands, git uuc (Unstage and Undo Commit) and git urc (Unstaged Restore Commit) are meant to be used as a way to make examining a commit's diff easier. When using an editor like Visual Studio Code, you can usually see your unstaged changes highlighted in some way in the editor. Using git uuc will let you view a commit as if it was still an unstaged change, by undoing it (with git uc) and unstaging all changes. The commit SHA is saved by this command, so to recover the commit use git urc to put things back the way they were. Example:

$ git uuc
...view changes in visual editor...
$ git urc

Please don't use any of these without fully understanding what they're doing, as they probably have lots of corner cases that could mess up your repository.

git-rc

#! /usr/bin/env bash

set -eu
set -o pipefail

if ! [ -e ./.git_uc ]; then
    echo "No previous commit message found to restore. Did you run git uc?"
    exit 1
fi

git commit --file ./.git_uc --edit "$@"
rm ./.git_uc

git-uc

#! /usr/bin/env bash

# Undos a commit while keeping its changes staged, and saves the commit message for restoring with git-rc

set -eu
set -o pipefail

if [ -e ./.git_uc ] ; then
  echo "./.git_uc already exists, meaning you're already undoing a commit! Run git rc or delete the file."
  exit 1
fi
 
git log -1 --pretty=%B > ./.git_uc
git reset --soft HEAD~1

echo "Last commit undone and message saved. Make changes to staged files and then run git rc to commit using the saved commit message."

git-urc

#! /usr/bin/env bash

set -eu
set -o pipefail

if ! [ -e ./.git_uuc_sha ]; then
    echo "./.git_uuc_sha doesn't exist, did you run git uuc first?"
    exit 1
fi

git reset --hard $(cat ./.git_uuc_sha)
rm ./.git_uuc_sha

git-uuc

#! /usr/bin/env bash

set -eu
set -o pipefail

git rev-parse HEAD > ./.git_uuc_sha  # save SHA in case of git urc
git uc
git reset