What are the steps to unstage files and discard changes in the working directory

Question

I want to undo certain changes made to the working directory in my Git repository. How do I do it?

Answer 1

If the git status command displays 'myfile.txt' as file pending to commit then

• To unstage a file(which is not yet committed but in staging stage); command 'git reset <file-name>'  is used. After using 'git reset HEAD myfile.txt' command; 'git status' command won't show myfile.txt within the list of files unfinished to commit, currently it'll be displayed below the list of the unstage/untracked files.

• Now to discard the changes('myfile.txt') in working directory; command 'git checkout -- <file-name>' is used. After using 'git checkout -- myfile.txt' command; 'git status' command will not show myfile.txt in the list of unstage/untracked files as this file 'myfile.txt' will be replaced with the last committed version from the repository.