11-cherry-picking.md

Chapter 11 — Cherry-Picking

Cherry-pick copies a single commit from one branch to another.

When to Cherry-Pick

Cherry-picking is useful when you need one specific commit from another branch without merging the whole branch. Common scenarios: applying a hotfix from main to a release branch, or grabbing a single bug fix from a feature branch.

Basic Cherry-Pick

Example: Apply a single commit

git switch main
git cherry-pick f7g8h9i

[main k1l2m3n] Fix login redirect bug
 Date: Mon Mar 10 16:00:00 2025 +0330
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

🧠 What happened? Git created a new commit on main with the same changes as f7g8h9i, but with a different hash. The original commit on the other branch is untouched.

Cherry-Pick Multiple Commits

Example: Pick a range

git cherry-pick a1b2c3d..e4f5a6b

⚠️ The range is exclusive of the first commit. This picks everything after a1b2c3d up to and including e4f5a6b.

Example: Pick several specific commits

git cherry-pick a1b2c3d e4f5a6b f7g8h9i

Handling Conflicts

Example: Conflict during cherry-pick

git cherry-pick f7g8h9i

CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in app.js
error: could not apply f7g8h9i... Fix login redirect bug

# Fix the conflict in app.js
git add app.js
git cherry-pick --continue

Example: Abort the cherry-pick

git cherry-pick --abort

Cherry-Pick Without Committing

Example: Apply changes but don't commit

git cherry-pick --no-commit f7g8h9i
git status

Changes to be committed:
        modified:   app.js

🧠 What happened? The changes are staged but not committed. You can modify them further or combine them with other changes before committing.

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