git-replace(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | FORMATS | CREATING REPLACEMENT OBJECTS | BUGS | SEE ALSO | GIT | NOTES | COLOPHON

GIT-REPLACE(1)                 Git Manual                 GIT-REPLACE(1)

NAME         top

       git-replace - Create, list, delete refs to replace objects

SYNOPSIS         top

       git replace [-f] <object> <replacement>
       git replace [-f] --edit <object>
       git replace [-f] --graft <commit> [<parent>...]
       git replace [-f] --convert-graft-file
       git replace -d <object>...
       git replace [--format=<format>] [-l [<pattern>]]

DESCRIPTION         top

       Adds a replace reference in refs/replace/ namespace.

       The name of the replace reference is the SHA-1 of the object that
       is replaced. The content of the replace reference is the SHA-1 of
       the replacement object.

       The replaced object and the replacement object must be of the
       same type. This restriction can be bypassed using -f.

       Unless -f is given, the replace reference must not yet exist.

       There is no other restriction on the replaced and replacement
       objects. Merge commits can be replaced by non-merge commits and
       vice versa.

       Replacement references will be used by default by all Git
       commands except those doing reachability traversal (prune, pack
       transfer and fsck).

       It is possible to disable the use of replacement references for
       any command using the --no-replace-objects option just after git.

       For example if commit foo has been replaced by commit bar:

           $ git --no-replace-objects cat-file commit foo

       shows information about commit foo, while:

           $ git cat-file commit foo

       shows information about commit bar.

       The GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS environment variable can be set to
       achieve the same effect as the --no-replace-objects option.

OPTIONS         top

       -f, --force
           If an existing replace ref for the same object exists, it
           will be overwritten (instead of failing).

       -d, --delete
           Delete existing replace refs for the given objects.

       --edit <object>
           Edit an object’s content interactively. The existing content
           for <object> is pretty-printed into a temporary file, an
           editor is launched on the file, and the result is parsed to
           create a new object of the same type as <object>. A
           replacement ref is then created to replace <object> with the
           newly created object. See git-var(1) for details about how
           the editor will be chosen.

       --raw
           When editing, provide the raw object contents rather than
           pretty-printed ones. Currently this only affects trees, which
           will be shown in their binary form. This is harder to work
           with, but can help when repairing a tree that is so corrupted
           it cannot be pretty-printed. Note that you may need to
           configure your editor to cleanly read and write binary data.

       --graft <commit> [<parent>...]
           Create a graft commit. A new commit is created with the same
           content as <commit> except that its parents will be
           [<parent>...] instead of <commit>'s parents. A replacement
           ref is then created to replace <commit> with the newly
           created commit. Use --convert-graft-file to convert a
           $GIT_DIR/info/grafts file and use replace refs instead.

       --convert-graft-file
           Creates graft commits for all entries in $GIT_DIR/info/grafts
           and deletes that file upon success. The purpose is to help
           users with transitioning off of the now-deprecated graft
           file.

       -l <pattern>, --list <pattern>
           List replace refs for objects that match the given pattern
           (or all if no pattern is given). Typing "git replace" without
           arguments, also lists all replace refs.

       --format=<format>
           When listing, use the specified <format>, which can be one of
           short, medium and long. When omitted, the format defaults to
           short.

FORMATS         top

       The following formats are available:

       •   short: <replaced sha1>

       •   medium: <replaced sha1> → <replacement sha1>

       •   long: <replaced sha1> (<replaced type>) → <replacement sha1>
           (<replacement type>)

CREATING REPLACEMENT OBJECTS         top

       git-hash-object(1), git-rebase(1), and git-filter-repo[1], among
       other git commands, can be used to create replacement objects
       from existing objects. The --edit option can also be used with
       git replace to create a replacement object by editing an existing
       object.

       If you want to replace many blobs, trees or commits that are part
       of a string of commits, you may just want to create a replacement
       string of commits and then only replace the commit at the tip of
       the target string of commits with the commit at the tip of the
       replacement string of commits.

BUGS         top

       Comparing blobs or trees that have been replaced with those that
       replace them will not work properly. And using git reset --hard
       to go back to a replaced commit will move the branch to the
       replacement commit instead of the replaced commit.

       There may be other problems when using git rev-list related to
       pending objects.

SEE ALSO         top

       git-hash-object(1) git-rebase(1) git-tag(1) git-branch(1)
       git-commit(1) git-var(1) git(1) git-filter-repo[1]

GIT         top

       Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES         top

        1. git-filter-repo
           https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
       system) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2023-12-20.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Git 2.43.0.174.g055bb6         2023-12-20                 GIT-REPLACE(1)

Pages that refer to this page: git(1)git-cat-file(1)git-config(1)gitrepository-layout(5)gitglossary(7)