Re: [BUG] - "git commit --amend" commits, when exiting the editor with no changes written

[Jacob Helwig <jacob.helwig@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 12:07, Eugene Sajine <euguess@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It seems to me it is a bug:
>
> When git commit --amend is executed it fires up vi so i can change the
> commit message. If I have something staged, then when I'm exiting vi
> using :q (without doing/writing any changes), it still commits
> everything staged with old message.
>
> I believe it should actually abort amending and return to the state
> before the "git commit --amend" was issued.
>
> Thanks,
> Eugene
>

I don't think this is actually the right way to go.  A _very_ common
use case for "commit --amend" is to add things to the previous commit,
without changing the commit message at all.  Yes, you can avoid having
to fire up the editor at all in this case, but it's still a perfectly
valid thing to want to do.

If you want to abort amending, and return to the state before the "git
commit --amend", you can remove all non-comment lines (IE: write out
an "empty" commit message), or have your editor exit with a non-zero
exit code (Use ":cquit").

The comment block that comes up in your editor mentions this first
method, explicitly. "..., and an empty message aborts the commit."

-Jacob