Question
Answer and Explanation
The question "Is it necessary to revert an uncommitted Git change?" is often pondered by developers. The short answer is: not always, but sometimes, depending on the situation.
Understanding Uncommitted Changes:
Uncommitted changes in Git refer to modifications you've made to your files within the working directory but have not yet staged (using git add
) or committed (using git commit
). These changes are temporary and exist only on your local machine, not part of your repository’s commit history.
When Reverting is NOT Necessary:
- Exploration: When you are experimenting with new code or refactoring and haven't yet settled on the approach, it's normal to have many uncommitted changes. In such cases, there's no real need to revert these changes unless you specifically want to undo a few steps. Git's design provides flexibility; your workflow doesn’t need to involve reverting such trials.
- Task Switching: If you have to shift gears and start on another issue, these temporary uncommitted edits may remain, and that's generally fine. When coming back, a clear idea to proceed might have crystallized further.
When Reverting is Recommended:
- Mistakes: If you realize you have written flawed logic or started modifying the wrong files and are clearly headed in an erroneous direction, you might consider reverting those modifications for clarity and easier navigation of what's necessary in next step, it might cause you to start all over in some edge cases.
- Unexpected Outcome: You introduced change which unexpectedly break some logic and might corrupt future development of current module you're working with and it’s more likely that current changes won't go along with previously designed module's architecture.
Ways to Revert Uncommitted Changes:
- Discard Individual Changes: Using `git restore
- Discard All Uncommitted Changes: Using `git restore .` will get all of changes to all files discarded in uncommitted stage.
In Summary:
It is not mandatory, but very helpful, especially when you find yourself on wrong trajectory and to clean up your directory before commencing a fresh development approach. While `git` allows both approaches to uncommitted changes ( keeping, reverting ) what you want to prioritize is being neat in approach.