Cherry-Picking

The git cherry-pick command allows you to apply one or more commits from any other branch in the repository to the HEAD of the current branch. Cherry-Picking is useful when you do not wish to apply all commits on a source branch to the current branch. If you aim to merge all commits from a source branch into the current branch, you should instead use Merge or Rebase.

In the example below, we want to cherry-pick commit C from the branch a-branch into the HEAD of the current (target) main branch.

git checkout main  # Set the current branch as the target branch
git cherry-pick C  #

This will append a new commit C’, equivalent to C, onto the main branch.

o                          o  C' [> main]
|                          |
o  [> main] A              o  A
|                          |
|   o  [a-branch]          |   o  [a-branch]
|   |                      |   |
o   |  B                   o   |  B
|   |                      |   |
|   o  C (selected)        |   o  C
|   |                      |   |
o   |  D       ===>        o   |  D
|  /     cherry-pick C     |  /
| /                        | /
o                          o

Note

• Cherry-picking commits should be done carefully. In the above example, after cherry-picking C, a future attempt to merge a-branch into main could result in merge-conflicts because C and C' may conflict.
• If a conflict occurs during cherry-picking, the working tree will enter ‘Cherry-Picking’ status. You’ll either need to resolve the conflict (e.g., using the SmartGit Conflict Resolver) and complete the cherry-pick or abort the cherry-pick attempt.

See Also: Cherry Pick in SmartGit