Need to reset git branch to origin version

Question

I was accidentally working on a branch I shouldn\'t have been for a while, so I branched off of it giving it the appropriate name. Now I want to overwrite the branch I shou

Answer 1

Assuming this is what happened:

# on branch master
vi buggy.py                 # you edit file
git add buggy.py            # stage file
git commit -m "Fix the bug" # commit
vi tests.py                 # edit another file but do not commit yet

Then you realise you make changes on the wrong branch.

git checkout -b mybranch    # you create the correct branch and switch to it

But master still points to your commit. You want it to point where it pointed before.

Solution

The easiest way is:

git branch --force master origin/master

Another way is:

git checkout master
git reset --soft origin/master
git checkout mybranch

Note that using reset --hard will cause your uncommitted changes to be lost (tests.py in my example).