A Simple Cherry-Pick

Port changes from one branch to another#

Since every commit in Git is a change set with a reference ID, you can easily port changes from one branch to another.

Setup#

To demonstrate this, create a simple repository with two changes:

1   mkdir lgthw_cherry_pick
2   cd lgthw_cherry_pick
3   git init
4   echo change1 > file1
5   git add file1
6   git commit -am change1
7   echo change2 >> file1
8   git commit -am change2
9   git log --all --oneline --decorate --graph

Branch off#

At this point, branch off into two branches: master and experimental. Type the following commands in the terminal given above:

10  git branch experimental
11  git checkout experimental
12  echo crazy change >> file1
13  cat file1
14  git commit -am crazy
15  echo more sensible change >> file1
16  cat file1
17  git commit -am sensible

Cherry-picking a commit#

You decide that the “sensible” change is the one you want to keep.

First, get the reference ID for that “sensible” commit with a git log:

18  git log --all --oneline --decorate --graph

Then, checkout the master and run a cherry-pick command using the identifier (replace “ID” with the below).

19  git checkout master
20  git cherry-pick ID

Remember to replace the ID below with the commit identifier you found in the git log command.

Sometimes a cherry-pick might fail because the diff cannot be applied easily, as in this case.