Re: Individual file snapshots

> On Feb 12, 2010, at 4:25 PM, Ron Garret wrote:
> 
> > Yeah, I considered that.  The problem with that is that the actual 
> > process turns out to be pretty obtrusive.  The scenario is that I've 
> > done a bunch of hacking on the main branch and I realize that it's going 
> > nowhere.  Nothing is working, everything is a horrible mess that's 
> > spinning wildly out of control.  I want to get rid of everything I've 
> > done and start over from an earlier snapshot that I knew was working.  
> > But I also want to keep a copy of this current messy state around for 
> > reference just in case there's a snippet here and there that might be 
> > salvageable later on.  I don't know of any easy way to save the messed 
> > up file onto another branch.  I'd have to save the file somewhere (in 
> > the stash maybe?), check out the snapshot branch, retrieve the saved 
> > file, do the commit, and then switch back to the main branch.
> 
> Have you tried creating a new branch without saving the state?
> 
> git checkout -b failed-experiment
> git commit -a -m "Back to the drawing board"
> git checkout master
> 
> Or if a series of commits seem to have gone bad:
> 
> git commit -a -m "Well, that didn't work."
> git branch failed-experiment
> git reset --hard origin/master # or other good state
> 
> You can of course replace the -a to commit with the needed "git add <file>" 
> commands and leave off the -m to leave real messages about why it went bad 
> using $EDITOR.