Git prepend all commit messages in interactive rebase

Question

I ran an interactive rebase up to commit abcdef.

git rebase -i abcdef

In the editor - Vim I changed all pick hash lines to

reword hash PREFIX: Original commit message using this vim command

%s/pick $\w\{7}$/reword \1 PREFIX:/

but then git goes on to prompt me to edit the message for every commit. Is there a simple way to batch this process?

jthill · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-02 00:24:10Z

9

GIT_EDITOR='sed -i "1s/^/PREFIX: /"' GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR=vim \ git rebase -i abcdef

or alternately you could

git -c core.editor='sed -i "1s/^/PREFIX: /"' \ -c sequence.editor=vim \ rebase -i abcdef

if you don't want to use the environment overrides.

If you know you're going to reword them all you could even sed the sequence, GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR='sed -i "s/^pick/reword/"'.

edited Jan 2, 2018 at 0:24

answered Apr 11, 2017 at 16:18

jthill

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2 Comments

Peter Chaula Over a year ago

@jtill What do you think about davidwalsh.name/update-git-commit-messages?

jthill Over a year ago

filter-branch works too, it's just a question of what's most convenient at the moment. Sometimes you need a screwdriver, sometimes you need a crowbar, sometimes a dime would do, sometimes all of them would do the job eventually and it's just a question of what's handiest at the moment. git commit --amend for the checked-out commit, git rebase -i for hunk-shuffling and merge elision and light-duty rewords, git filter-branch for wholesale batch work where what you're doing isn't hunk-shuffling and the rebase overhead starts mattering.

CodeMonkey · Accepted Answer · 2024-06-24 11:32:45Z

Alternative answer using only git:

git rebase -i --exec 'git commit --amend --no-verify -m "PREFIX: $(git show -s --format=%s)"' origin/master

You can also do this non-interactively (without the -i flag). Afterwards in the interactive window you can remove the exec directive after every commit where the prefix shouldn't be applied.

Explanation:

Using rebase --exec you can execute a command for every commit, this is quite generally useful.
Using git commit --no-verify --amend -m <MESSAGE> you can change the message of the current commit, without executing the pre-commit hooks, in-case you have any.
Using git show -s --format=%s you can display the current commit message.

Putting it all together:

To prefix the message we must get the current message (3), and change the current message with amend (2), i.e. git commit --amend --no-verify -m "PREFIX: $(git show -s --format=%s)". The double quotes are important so that the command gets executed inside the message string.
To do this for every commit in the rebase (based on your origin/master branch here) you execute (4) on every commit, using single quotes otherwise every commit will get your last commit's message, and voilà you get the command above.

Thanks you for this great answer ! Note than if you have hooks for commit messages you will have to add --no-verify for the git commit --amend command.
@Arsenar thank you, I amended my answer to include --no-verify, it should make it more robust.

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