What's the difference between HEAD^ and HEAD~ in Git?

Question

When I specify an ancestor commit object in Git, I\'m confused between HEAD^ and HEAD~.

Both have a \"numbered\" version like HEAD^3<

Answer 1

If you're wondering whether to type HEAD^ or HEAD~ in your command, just use either:

They're both names for the same commit - the first parent of the current commit.

Likewise with master~ and master^ - both names for the first parent of master.

In the same way as 2 + 2 and 2 x 2 are both 4 - they're different ways of getting there, but the answer is the same.

This answers the question: What's the difference between HEAD^ and HEAD~ in Git?

If you just did a merge (so your current commit has more than one parent), or you're still interested in how the caret and tilde work, see the other answers (which I won't duplicate here) for an in-depth explanation, as well as how to use them repeatedly (e.g.HEAD~~~), or with numbers (e.g.HEAD^2). Otherwise, I hope this answer saves you some time.