Abandoning Git commits on Github for rejected pull requests
git, github
Solution
You can reset your repo state to an earlier commit. First figure out which commit you want to reset your repo to:
git log
To reset your repo to that state:
git reset --hard <commit_hash>
If you have a forked remote repo, you can push these changes back to it:
git push -f <remote> <branch>
You might want to change your workflow to make things easier in the future though.
When I fork a repo and am making my own changes to it, I first set up two remotes. One remote will point to my forked repo (ex: `origin`), and add another remote points to the original repo that was forked from (ex: `original_repo`). So I might have something like:
$ git remote
origin
original_repo
I create a branch to do all my work in, ex: `feature`. When making a pull request, I do it from the `feature` branch to the `original_repo` `master` branch. If the pull request is rejected, like your example, you can just abandon this branch. If you want to work on more modifications, just create another branch from `master` and use that to work in.
I also don't commit or merge any local changes to the `master` branch. I only use the `master` branch to sync up with the `original_repo` `master` branch. ex:
git checkout master
git fetch original_repo
git merge original_repo/master
This ensures the `master` branch is always synched up with the original repo's `master` branch. For example, if the pull request was accepted and merged in, when the fetch and merge happens, local `master` would also have all the 'approved' code used in the original repo.
Basically use `master` to sync up with the original repo's `master` and always branch from master when you want to make edits. Use those branches for your pull requests to the original repo.
Problem
I've forked someone's project and made some commits. I filled out a pull request, and it wasn't accepted (either the change was not desirable, or the author rewrote the functionality to be in line with "his style"). Now I'm stuck with my local fork having a few extra commits that will never get to go into upstream. I can back out the change sets, but then I have twice as many extra commits and will have to cart them around forever. It's just ugly! What's the best way to abandon these commits that nobody wants and get my fork back to tracking upstream? I know I can delete the fork completely and re-fork it, but this is really heavy-handed and I'd lose any other work I'm doing.