Remove commits from git rebased branch after other commits were done

Question

I have a project with two branches called master and feature/x. On feature/x I'm working on new features that will be merged on master.

For mistake on feature/x a rebase action based on master was done and pushed. Besides other commits were done and pushed on feature/x.

So I have two branches that contain "same commits" marked by different hash.

A -- B -- C -- D [master]
 \
  E -- F -- G -- H -- I [feature/x]

where C and D on master are respectively the same commits (rebased) of F and G on feature/x.

I would like to remove F and G from feature/x maintaining H and I. How can I do it?

I'm thinking to revert commit

git revert F G

from feature/x but those useless (duplicate) commits will remain in the history. I would know if there are better way to do it?

Answer 1

The simplest way is to rebase interactively: checkout feature/x, and do

git rebase -i E

then just delete the lines for F, G from the rebase script you're prompted to edit. This will create leave your branches looking like

master   -> A -- B -- C -- D
                  \
feaure/x ->        E -- H' -- I'
                    \
(orphaned)           F -- G -- H -- I

You can do the same thing with

git rebase --onto E G feature/x

but the interactive method is much easier to remember (I had to look up the argument order in the online help).

---

Note that the old commits still exist, and are recoverable, but will eventually be garbage-collected if nothing refers to them.