git reset --hard isn't that hard

Like the experienced git user that I am, I accidentally deleted some of my code. I did this by running git reset --hard HEAD^^. I meant to only insert one circumflex, but that key acts differently on windows than it does on linux. Sadly I am already way too used to the linux behaviour, which only inserts one circumflex after hitting the key twice.

After a short search on StackOverflow, I found out, that reset doesn't actually drop a commit. Instead the branch will just stop tracking that commit. Meaning that you can still access the commit, as long as you still have the commit-hash or you can try finding it with git reflog.

After reading the man-page for git reset this also makes sense, since all that git reset is doing, is to modify the index and optionally your working tree.

However, this is even more interesting, when you are deleting a branch. A branch is really nothing more than a chain of tracked commits. So even after deleting a branch, you can still find the commits in the reflog. And simply git cherry-pick whatever you need.