Programming
linux git ambiguous-grammar
Updated Sun, 28 Aug 2022 17:10:29 GMT

Removing sensitive data from Git. "fatal: ambiguous argument 'rm'"


I'm trying to run this command:

git filter-branch --force --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch filename.js' --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

but I keep getting this error:

fatal: ambiguous argument 'rm': unknown revision or path not in the working tree
.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'


Solution

It depends on the shell you are using.
On Windows, with msysgit for instance, see issue 477:

Single quotes do not have a special meaning with CMD. Do not expect that they work the same as with a POSIX shell. Call filter-branch like this:

git filter-branch --commit-filter "GIT_COMMITTER_NAME=void GIT_AUTHOR_NAME=void GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL=just.a.test@kernel.org GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=just.a.test@kernel.org; git commit-tree \"$@\"" HEAD

Multiple lines:

git filter-branch --commit-filter "GIT_COMMITTER_NAME=void \
                                   GIT_AUTHOR_NAME=void \
                                   GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL=just.a.test@kernel.org \
                                   GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=just.a.test@kernel.org; \
                                   git commit-tree \"$@\"" HEAD

As mentioned in "How to pass a programmatically generated list of files to git filter-branch?"

Each argument to the various ...-filters needs to be a single string. That string is saved as a shell variable.

So make sure 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch filename.js' is considered a string in the shell you are in.
As Constantine Ketskalo points out in the comments:

Windows 10, PyCharm, GitPython, same command as in question.
Simply changed ' to " inside the string and it worked!

Comments (4)

  • +0 – I tried doing this call twice (using the corrected format), only to get on the second time the following: Cannot create a new backup. A previous backup already exists in refs/original/ Force overwriting the backup with -f rm: cannot remove '/YOURPATH/.git-rewrite/backup-refs': Permission denied rm: cannot remove directory '/YOURPATH/.git-rewrite': Directory not empty. — Oct 03, 2014 at 14:05  
  • +0 – @drzaus yes, you might have to remove manually the /YOURPATH/.git-rewrite folder. — Oct 03, 2014 at 14:38  
  • +0 – So make sure 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch filename.js' is considered a string in the shell you are in. VonC, thank you so much. It saved me who knows how much more time it could be. Windows 10, PyCharm, GitPython, same command as in question. Simply changed ' to " inside the string and it worked! — May 30, 2019 at 12:47  
  • +1 – @ConstantineKetskalo Thank you for this feedback. I have included your comment in the answer for more visibility. — May 30, 2019 at 22:55  

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