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gitgit-filter

Remove all commits by author

How do I remove all commits by certain author (committed by mistake - such an author should not be visible in the commits history).

I have found some code to rename - 

git filter-branch --env-filter '
OLD_EMAIL="[email protected]"
CORRECT_NAME="name"
CORRECT_EMAIL="[email protected]"
if [ "$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL" = "$OLD_EMAIL" ]
then
export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$CORRECT_NAME"
export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$CORRECT_EMAIL"
fi
if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" = "$OLD_EMAIL" ]
then
export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="$CORRECT_NAME"
export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="$CORRECT_EMAIL"
fi
' --tag-name-filter cat -- --branches --tags


git push --force --tags origin 'refs/heads/*'

Is there some filter not to rename but remove such commits?

Solution

  • You can do it like this:

    1. Create a new branch based on the commit you want to start with:

      git checkout -b <branch-name> <base-commit>

    2. Cherry-pick all commits that don’t have the matching author:

      git log --author "<name>" --invert-grep --reverse --format="format:%H" HEAD..master | xargs git cherry-pick

    The log filters out all commits made by the author and then cherry-picks them one after one.

    Explanation for the parameters (partly quoted from git log manpage):

    • --author "name"
      Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header lines that match the specified pattern (regular expression). With more than one --author=, commits whose author matches any of the given patterns are chosen (similarly for multiple --committer=).
    • --invert-grep
      Limit the commits output to ones with log message that do not match the pattern specified with --grep=
    • --reverse Output the commits in reverse order. […]
    • --format="format:%H" Use a custom format, in this case only the commit hash