Julia EvansMay 16, 2024

in git, what ways are there to "lose" a commit in a way that you CAN'T recover using the reflog (so that you need to iterate over every single commit in the repository if you want to find it?

The only ways I know (using git's normal tools) are:

* using `git stash drop` or `git stash pop` to drop a stashed commit
* waiting 90+ days to try to recover the commit (so that it expires from the reflog)
* explicitly deleting the reflog in some way (rm -rf .git, git reflog expire, etc)

Show threadJulia EvansMay 16, 2024

also: have you even run into a situation where git *completely deleted* a commit that you needed? (where it wasn't recoverable with the reflog or with `git fsck`)

only interested in things that have *actually happened to you*, not "this could theoretically happen if…”

I'm trying to think about whether there's any normal way for that to happen except if you completely delete your git repository.

Show threadTobias Fried
@b0rk git didn't do it, I did it. A repo was stuck in a nasty rebase I thought was beyond repair, so I decided to replace the whole directory, including (accidentally) the .git dir, with an older copy on another disk. I thought this copy was more current than it actually was.
May 16, 2024 at 9:54pmWeb