Helpful git tricks

Splitting a commit

Here is a nice trick for splitting commits buried in history into multiple commits.

Advanced merge/rebase conflict examination

Sometimes the git 'diff3' output doesn't make it obvious what to do with a conflict, especially when one of the conflicting commits changes many lines and another changes very few. Try the following commands to see specific diffs:

git diff :1:Filename :2:Filename   # Compare current branch with common ancestor
git diff :1:Filename :3:Filename   # Compare merged-in branch with common ancestor
git log --merge -p Filename        # Show both simultaneously to avoid running two separate commands