til/git/clean-out-working-copy-with-patched-restore.md

Clean Out Working Copy With Patched Restore

I sometimes let the working copy of my projects get a little messy. The working copy is all the changes I've made to tracked files that haven't been staged or commited.

After working for a bit, especially on something more exploratory, I end up with comments, log statements, and debugging calls scattered across a bunch of files.

If these exploratory changes are mixed in with a bunch of actual changes, it can create a lot noise. I can clean up that noise by restoring the files. I can be surgical about it with the --patch flag.

$ git restore --patch

This will prompt me for each changeset.

• y -- yes, restore that change
• n -- no, leave it there
• q -- bail out of the restore

There are other patch options, but these are the ones I use the most. To see what the rest of the options are, go to man git-add and find patch in the INTERACTIVE MODE section.