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user-manual: clarify language about "modifying" old commits
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It's important to remember that git doesn't really allowing "editing" or
"modifying" commits, only replacing them by new commits.  Redo some of
the language to make this clearer.

Signed-off-by: J. Bruce Fields <bfields@citi.umich.edu>
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J. Bruce Fields committed Nov 26, 2007
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20 changes: 11 additions & 9 deletions Documentation/user-manual.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1416,8 +1416,8 @@ with the changes to be reverted, then you will be asked to fix
conflicts manually, just as in the case of <<resolving-a-merge,
resolving a merge>>.

[[fixing-a-mistake-by-editing-history]]
Fixing a mistake by editing history
[[fixing-a-mistake-by-rewriting-history]]
Fixing a mistake by rewriting history
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the problematic commit is the most recent commit, and you have not
Expand All @@ -1440,7 +1440,7 @@ Again, you should never do this to a commit that may already have
been merged into another branch; use gitlink:git-revert[1] instead in
that case.

It is also possible to edit commits further back in the history, but
It is also possible to replace commits further back in the history, but
this is an advanced topic to be left for
<<cleaning-up-history,another chapter>>.

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1977,7 +1977,7 @@ This can happen, for example, if you:

- use `git reset --hard` to remove already-published commits, or
- use `git commit --amend` to replace already-published commits
(as in <<fixing-a-mistake-by-editing-history>>), or
(as in <<fixing-a-mistake-by-rewriting-history>>), or
- use `git rebase` to rebase any already-published commits (as
in <<using-git-rebase>>).

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -2472,11 +2472,11 @@ return mywork to the state it had before you started the rebase:
$ git rebase --abort
-------------------------------------------------

[[modifying-one-commit]]
Modifying a single commit
[[rewriting-one-commit]]
Rewriting a single commit
-------------------------

We saw in <<fixing-a-mistake-by-editing-history>> that you can replace the
We saw in <<fixing-a-mistake-by-rewriting-history>> that you can replace the
most recent commit using

-------------------------------------------------
Expand All @@ -2486,8 +2486,10 @@ $ git commit --amend
which will replace the old commit by a new commit incorporating your
changes, giving you a chance to edit the old commit message first.

You can also use a combination of this and gitlink:git-rebase[1] to edit
commits further back in your history. First, tag the problematic commit with
You can also use a combination of this and gitlink:git-rebase[1] to
replace a commit further back in your history and recreate the
intervening changes on top of it. First, tag the problematic commit
with

-------------------------------------------------
$ git tag bad mywork~5
Expand Down

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