Insight into Changing Authors Of Pushed Git Commits

Git Hub provides a complete web-based graphical interface and a collaboration feature with access control. Git Hub is a web-based platform used for version control. It simplifies the process of development and lets developers collaborate on projects and codes.

Git commit is a feature that puts all your changes in the local repository, and git push sends all your changes in the remote location. Here git works as a local repo system where push changes up to the remote repo and the commit make changes to your local repository. You can change the author of one specified commit in the history by following some steps.

Start by correcting author details:-

Start by pointing out the repository to the last correct commit. With this, you can correct all the commits. Use the rebase command to do this.

• Git rebase –i <last-correct-commit-hash>

With the above command, you will get a complete list of commit hashes. After the list opens up, you will be able to edit it for review. Press ‘i’ for editing the review, and change the word pick for editing each commit that needs a change. Once you save the changes, the rebase process will start, and you can correct/change the author’s name.

• There are three different ways to change the author’s information before making the commit.

For changing the author email or name of the next commit, you can pass the –author flag with your information and the desired message.

• git commit –author=”Mary McFly <mary.mcfly@theheads.com>” –message=”Changing the plain text on prom banner”

You can change the author information for future commits in the current repository. For this, you will need to update the git config settings.

# Steer to repository

cd path/to/repository

Existing log

To update or change the author name on a global level for all the repositories, you can add the –global flag.

git config –global user.name “sanjay”

git config –global user.email “sanjay.kumar@webuters.com”

What does the rebase commit do?

Rebasing helps you move or combine different sequences of commit to a new base commit. It is not only functional but it visualizes future branching workflow. With the perspective of content, rebasing means changing the branch base to another base that makes it appear as you create your branch from a different commit.

The git lets you accomplish this by creating new commits and applying them to a specified base. It is important to know that even if the branch looks similar, it is composed of new commits. The only reason you need a rebase is to maintain a linear project history.

As rebase command lets you shift, it is an alternative to the merge command. The only difference between merging and rebase is; rebase lets you rewrite commit history while the merging feature adds new commits to the destination of the branch. You should never rebase the commits once they have been pushed to the public repository. The rebase can replace the old commits with new ones.

 Give Git amend command:-

Git has many different mechanisms for storing history and making relevant changes. The mechanisms include – git rebase, amend and git reflog. These options give you powerful workflow customization.

The amend command will allow you to change the details of the commit. The structure you can follow is simple:

• git commit -amend.

It will lead to a vim view where the commit details can be changed. After you make all the changes, you can change the author of the git commit as mentioned above.

The git amend command is the most effective way to modify the recent commits. It helps you to combine the staged changes with the recent commit. You can use it to edit the previous commit message without changing the snapshot. But when you amend, it does not alter the recent commit but replaces it.

It means the amended commit will have its new entity. To the git, it looks like a new commit. Avoid amending any commit that the developers have based their work on. It can be quite a confusing situation for new developers, and it is also complicated to recover from this situation. 

Change the Git history:-

Changing the git history can take a while, but it is a powerful tool with rebase. In conflicts during rebasing, git pauses on the conflicting commit and allows fixing the conflicts before you proceed. Though solving conflicts in the middle of long commits is confusing and can cause conflicting errors.

But, rebasing creates a linear mindset and gives the lesser advantage to git commit. And that is why it is not recommended to entirely change the history of the git repository unless you don’t have any alternative in place. When multiple developers work on multiple branches, changing the git history can become problematic.

 Change authors of all wrong pushed commits:-

The way you change the commit author sequence depends on specific information. Do you need to change only one author information or multiple authors before you make a commit? Are all the commits remote or local?

How many commits do you need to alter or amend? You can change the author’s information on a global level. But for this, you need to edit the previous commits on the safe mode. The safer methods ensure that you make no mistake while changing the authors of wrong pushed commits.

 Edit multiple commits with interactive rebase:-

The best way to edit the commit history is using the interactive rebase command of git. You will need to find the hash commit before the one you want to make an edit to. Passing on to the rebase command is a good option.

• # Passing the last “good” commit hash

git rebase -I 9b4351e2

Make the commit you want to modify with the edit keyword option. Now, git will step you through each commit, which will allow you to make further edits. Run through the commits and edit them accordingly.

 The Recap

Git tracks the author of the commit change. If you cannot modify anything, the global settings will be applied. As a precaution, you must set authors based on a repository than the global level to avoid a messy situation.

At times, you can mess up author credentials across the global repository, which will cause many issues. Git offers many ways to change the authors in a commit; you will have to select which option works best for you. Git push is one important component, which is handy in the entire git synchronizing process.