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  1. Ran git log, which showed following
commit on master( in my case, it is develop branch) a867b4af366350be2e7c21b8de9cc6504678a61b`
Author: Me <me@me.com>
Date:   Thu Nov 4 18:59:41 2010 -0400

blah blah blah...

commit 25eee4caef46ae64aa08e8ab3f988bc917ee1ce4
Author: Me <me@me.com>
Date:   Thu Nov 4 05:13:39 2010 -0400

more blah blah blah...

commit 0766c053c0ea2035e90f504928f8df3c9363b8bd
Author: Me <me@me.com>
Date:   Thu Nov 4 00:55:06 2010 -0400

And yet more blah blah...

commit 0d1d7fc32e5a947fbd92ee598033d85bfc445a50
Author: Me <me@me.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 3 23:56:08 2010 -0400

Yep, more blah blah.

  1. As I'm not able to revert or reset my master branch to certain commit, created a new branch from the old commit, which contains the deleted branch by running following command

    git checkout -b "branch_name" 0d1d7fc32e5a947fbd92ee598033d85bfc445a50

USING git hash of 03 November 2010, created a new branch (this commit contains the xyz.java file which does not exist in the latest commit on master (develop) branch)

  1. Do not have any more changes to make in this new branch (created in step 2 above). purpose of creating this new branch was to revert the xyz.java file, which has been deleted in master. Pushed this new branch to remote.

Git does not allow me to create a PR for this new branch as it shows an error that this new branch does not contain any change, which is not already contained in develop.

If I rebase my new branch with master (develop, in my case) by running following command, it deletes xyz.java file from my new branch.

git pull origin develop

How do you get xyz.java file back in my new branch, which allows git to recognise this new branch contains xyz.java file, which has been deleted in master branch?

joanis
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Dominic
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  • I think your difficulty comes from the fact that one of the sides you're merging says "delete that file", so the result of the merge will indeed not have that file. To fix this, start a brand new branch off of master, and use Ivan's solution to recover the file and commit it into your new branch, and submit a PR from that new branch. – joanis Oct 20 '22 at 23:33
  • Not having the right to push to master just means you cannot push *directly* to master. But what it really means is, the process to push to master is to create a branch from master, put commits to it, and submit a PR from it. The result is similar in the end, but typically with a review process in the middle. – joanis Oct 20 '22 at 23:34

2 Answers2

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TL;DR

You need to create a PR from a branch that starts from the latest state of master and adds the file back in, not from an old branch.

My solution

The fact that you don't have permission to push to master does not mean you cannot add commits to master. It just means you have to use a PR to do so.

Steps to follow:

  • Create a new branch from master in its latest state.
  • On that branch add and commit the file back in (e.g., using @Ivan's answer, or by using git revert on the commit where you deleted it).
  • Push that branch to the remote.
  • Submit a PR from it, and that will add the file back into master once it's approved and merged.

The point of having push protection on master is not to prevent you from adding commits onto master, but rather to force you to do it through a PR, typically for the purpose of having a review on it before it gets merged.

Why your approach didn't work

In the attempt you describe in the question, you started back from the old branch instead of starting from the latest version of master. The problem with that is that the master branch continues to have a commit that deletes that file, so merging that old branch in again, Git continue to (correctly) say, well, I'm merge a branch with the file into a branch that says delete that file, so that file should stay deleted.

In contrast, a new branch that re-adds is, when merged into main, will re-add it since you're merging one branch that doesn't have it and one branch that's adding it.

joanis
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Find the last commit before deleting this file. Remember the hash. Then checkout this file to your current branch.

git checkout <hash> -- <full/path/to/the/file>

For example:

git checkout 0d1d7fc32e5a947fbd92ee598033d85bfc445a50 -- xyz.java

Then make a commit.

Ivan Yuzafatau
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