Git: checking out a file from a previous commit and amending it to HEAD

Question

I recently committed a file to the HEAD of my branch which has errors in it. I need to do the following things:

• Get that file from one commit previous to HEAD <

Answer 1

Be carefull, in this scenario:

Commit hash - File modified
aaaaaaa       index.php
bbbbbbb       test.php
ccccccc       index.php

Git checkout HEAD~1 (or HEAD^) index.php try to checkout the index.php file to previous HEAD hash (bbbbbbb) but this is not the real previous commit hash file, is ccccccc. In the previous HEAD hash, index.php still remain unchanged because the last changed was made in hash ccccccc.

To revert some file to previous commit hash that affected the file, use:

git log -n 2 --pretty=format:%h path/to/file.ext

Ignore first hash and take the second hash, then:

git checkout  path/to/file.ext
git commit -m 'Revert this file to real previous commit'