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Posted by prateekparekh
prateekparekh
12,895 Points

What's the difference between git reset and git checkout?

As per the Git Acquainted workshop, it is clear that 1) Use git checkout to discard changes to an unstaged file

 git checkout js/script.js

2) Use git reset to undo staging of a modified file 

git reset HEAD js/script.js

HEAD is a reference to the last commit HEAD^ is a reference to the previous commit (as opposed to last commit)

Now, if I have modified a file, staged it (git add file1), committed it (git commit -m "Edit file1"), and want to unstage the file1 

git checkout HEAD^ js/script.js

Any reason why I couldn't use reset above? git reset HEAD^ js/script.js

Finally, if I accidentally deleted all my files in my local repository, and want to revert back to my old state, I do the following: 

git reset --hard HEAD^

I'm trying to understand when exactly to use checkout or reset?

1 Answer

Will Berlanga
Will Berlanga
18,825 Points
Will Berlanga
Will Berlanga
18,825 Points

It's important to remember that with git you are managing between what files are in the origin git repository (server) and what you have locally to your machine. Checkout is used to copy the files from the server to your local machine. Reset is used to get your local file back to the state of the what is on the server. These two ideas differ because of how Git manages state of your repository.