Is there a difference between git reset --hard HEAD and git checkout .?

Question

If I make changes to the working tree and have not yet committed, and I would like to revert the changes I have made, is there a difference between

git reset --hard HEAD

and

git checkout .

?

Answer 1

git checkout -- . will obviously only work on the current directory (and subdirectories thereof), git reset --hard will operate on the complete working tree.

git checkout -- . will only update the working tree and leave already staged files as is, whereas git reset --hard will match index and working tree with the HEAD commit.

when used with a refspec:

1. reset will set the current branch head to the given commit (and matches index and working tree)
2. checkout will switch to that branch, leaving local changes intact, when they touch files which did not change between the current branch and the branch to be checked out

Answer 2

These answers are good. I'd like to add that if you have deleted files, which are staged but not yet committed, then a git checkout . alone will not bring the deleted files back into the workspace. A git reset --hard will.