Dealing with spam

In the case that some spam or inappropriate comment makes its way through you interface, you can (sometimes) remove the offending commit XYZ.

If the offending commit is the last commit

arch
bzr	bzr uncommit && bzr revert
darcs	darcs obliterate –last=1
git	git reset –hard HEAD^
hg	hg rollback && hg revert
mtn	mtn db kill_rev_locally $(mtn automate get_base_revision_id)

If the offending commit is not the last commit

arch
bzr [1]	bzr rebase -r <XYZ+1>..-1 –onto before:XYZ .
darcs	darcs obliterate –matches ‘name XYZ’
git	git rebase –onto XYZ~1 XYZ
hg [2]
mtn [3]

[1]	Requires the `bzr-rebase plugin`_. Note, you have to increment XYZ by hand for <XYZ+1>, because bzr does not support after:XYZ.

[2]	From Mercurial, The Definitive Guide: “Mercurial also does not provide a way to make a file or changeset completely disappear from history, because there is no way to enforce its disappearance”

[3]	See Rebuilding ancestry in the Monotone documentation.

Warnings about changing history

Note that all of these change the repo history , so only do this on your interface-specific repo before it interacts with any other repo. Otherwise, you’ll have to survive by cherry-picking only the good commits.