NAME

git-cherry-pick - Apply the changes introduced by some existing commits

SYNOPSIS

git cherry-pick [--edit] [-n] [-m parent-number] [-s] [-x] [--ff]
          [-S[<keyid>]] <commit>…​
git cherry-pick (--continue | --skip | --abort | --quit)

DESCRIPTION

Given one or more existing commits, apply the change each oneintroduces, recording a new commit for each. This requires yourworking tree to be clean (no modifications from the HEAD commit).

When it is not obvious how to apply a change, the followinghappens:

• The current branch and HEAD pointer stay at the last commitsuccessfully made.

• The CHERRY_PICK_HEAD ref is set to point at the commit thatintroduced the change that is difficult to apply.

• Paths in which the change applied cleanly are updated bothin the index file and in your working tree.

• For conflicting paths, the index file records up to threeversions, as described in the "TRUE MERGE" section ofgit-merge[1]. The working tree files will includea description of the conflict bracketed by the usualconflict markers <<<<<<< and >>>>>>>.

• No other modifications are made.

See git-merge[1] for some hints on resolving suchconflicts.

OPTIONS

• …​

• Commits to cherry-pick.For a more complete list of ways to spell commits, seegitrevisions[7].Sets of commits can be passed but no traversal is done bydefault, as if the —no-walk option was specified, seegit-rev-list[1]. Note that specifying a range willfeed all …​ arguments to a single revision walk(see a later example that uses maint master..next).

• -e

• —edit

• With this option, git cherry-pick will let you edit the commitmessage prior to committing.

• —cleanup=

• This option determines how the commit message will be cleaned up beforebeing passed on to the commit machinery. See git-commit[1] for moredetails. In particular, if the is given a value of scissors,scissors will be appended to MERGE_MSG before being passed on in the caseof a conflict.

• -x

• When recording the commit, append a line that says"(cherry picked from commit …​)" to the original commitmessage in order to indicate which commit this change wascherry-picked from. This is done only for cherrypicks without conflicts. Do not use this option ifyou are cherry-picking from your private branch becausethe information is useless to the recipient. If on theother hand you are cherry-picking between two publiclyvisible branches (e.g. backporting a fix to amaintenance branch for an older release from adevelopment branch), adding this information can beuseful.

• -r

• It used to be that the command defaulted to do -xdescribed above, and -r was to disable it. Now thedefault is not to do -x so this option is a no-op.

• -m parent-number

• —mainline parent-number

• Usually you cannot cherry-pick a merge because you do not know whichside of the merge should be considered the mainline. Thisoption specifies the parent number (starting from 1) ofthe mainline and allows cherry-pick to replay the changerelative to the specified parent.

• -n

• —no-commit
• Usually the command automatically creates a sequence of commits.This flag applies the changes necessary to cherry-pickeach named commit to your working tree and the index,without making any commit. In addition, when thisoption is used, your index does not have to match theHEAD commit. The cherry-pick is done against thebeginning state of your index.

This is useful when cherry-picking more than one commits'effect to your index in a row.

• -s
• —signoff

• Add Signed-off-by line at the end of the commit message.See the signoff option in git-commit[1] for more information.

• -S[]

• —gpg-sign[=]

• GPG-sign commits. The keyid argument is optional anddefaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must bestuck to the option without a space.

• —ff

• If the current HEAD is the same as the parent of thecherry-pick’ed commit, then a fast forward to this commit willbe performed.

• —allow-empty

• By default, cherry-picking an empty commit will fail,indicating that an explicit invocation of git commit—allow-empty is required. This option overrides thatbehavior, allowing empty commits to be preserved automaticallyin a cherry-pick. Note that when "—ff" is in effect, emptycommits that meet the "fast-forward" requirement will be kepteven without this option. Note also, that use of this option onlykeeps commits that were initially empty (i.e. the commit recorded thesame tree as its parent). Commits which are made empty due to aprevious commit are dropped. To force the inclusion of those commitsuse —keep-redundant-commits.

• —allow-empty-message

• By default, cherry-picking a commit with an empty message will fail.This option overrides that behavior, allowing commits with emptymessages to be cherry picked.

• —keep-redundant-commits

• If a commit being cherry picked duplicates a commit already in thecurrent history, it will become empty. By default theseredundant commits cause cherry-pick to stop so the user canexamine the commit. This option overrides that behavior andcreates an empty commit object. Implies —allow-empty.

• —strategy=

• Use the given merge strategy. Should only be used once.See the MERGE STRATEGIES section in git-merge[1]for details.

• -X

• —strategy-option=

• Pass the merge strategy-specific option through to themerge strategy. See git-merge[1] for details.

• —rerere-autoupdate

• —no-rerere-autoupdate
• Allow the rerere mechanism to update the index with theresult of auto-conflict resolution if possible.

SEQUENCER SUBCOMMANDS

• —continue

• Continue the operation in progress using the information in.git/sequencer. Can be used to continue after resolvingconflicts in a failed cherry-pick or revert.

• —skip

• Skip the current commit and continue with the rest of thesequence.

• —quit

• Forget about the current operation in progress. Can be usedto clear the sequencer state after a failed cherry-pick orrevert.

• —abort

• Cancel the operation and return to the pre-sequence state.

EXAMPLES

• git cherry-pick master

• Apply the change introduced by the commit at the tip of themaster branch and create a new commit with this change.

• git cherry-pick ..master

• git cherry-pick ^HEAD master

• Apply the changes introduced by all commits that are ancestorsof master but not of HEAD to produce new commits.

• git cherry-pick maint next ^master

• git cherry-pick maint master..next

• Apply the changes introduced by all commits that areancestors of maint or next, but not master or any of itsancestors. Note that the latter does not mean maint andeverything between master and next; specifically,maint will not be used if it is included in master.

• git cherry-pick master~4 master~2

• Apply the changes introduced by the fifth and third lastcommits pointed to by master and create 2 new commits withthese changes.

• git cherry-pick -n master~1 next

• Apply to the working tree and the index the changes introducedby the second last commit pointed to by master and by the lastcommit pointed to by next, but do not create any commit withthese changes.

• git cherry-pick —ff ..next

• If history is linear and HEAD is an ancestor of next, updatethe working tree and advance the HEAD pointer to match next.Otherwise, apply the changes introduced by those commits thatare in next but not HEAD to the current branch, creating a newcommit for each new change.

• git rev-list —reverse master — README | git cherry-pick -n —stdin

• Apply the changes introduced by all commits on the masterbranch that touched README to the working tree and index,so the result can be inspected and made into a single newcommit if suitable.

The following sequence attempts to backport a patch, bails out becausethe code the patch applies to has changed too much, and then triesagain, this time exercising more care about matching up context lines.

$ git cherry-pick topic^             (1)
$ git diff                           (2)
$ git reset --merge ORIG_HEAD        (3)
$ git cherry-pick -Xpatience topic^  (4)

• apply the change that would be shown by git show topic^.In this example, the patch does not apply cleanly, soinformation about the conflict is written to the index andworking tree and no new commit results.

• summarize changes to be reconciled

• cancel the cherry-pick. In other words, return to thepre-cherry-pick state, preserving any local modificationsyou had in the working tree.

• try to apply the change introduced by topic^ again,spending extra time to avoid mistakes based on incorrectlymatching context lines.

SEE ALSO

git-revert[1]

GIT

Part of the git[1] suite