Logo Questions Linux Laravel Mysql Ubuntu Git Menu
 

How to retrieve a single file from a specific revision in Git?

I have a Git repository and I'd like to see how some files looked a few months ago. I found the revision at that date; it's 27cf8e84bb88e24ae4b4b3df2b77aab91a3735d8. I need to see what one file looks like, and also save it as a ("new") file.

I managed to see the file using gitk, but it doesn't have an option to save it. I tried with command-line tools, the closest I got was:

git-show 27cf8e84bb88e24ae4b4b3df2b77aab91a3735d8 my_file.txt

However, this command shows a diff, and not the file contents. I know I can later use something like PAGER=cat and redirect output to a file, but I don't know how to get to the actual file content.

Basically, I'm looking for something like svn cat.

like image 823
Milan Babuškov Avatar asked Mar 04 '09 11:03

Milan Babuškov


People also ask

How do I pull just one file from a git repository?

git checkout origin/master -- path/to/file // git checkout <local repo name (default is origin)>/<branch name> -- path/to/file will checkout the particular file from the downloaded changes (origin/master).

Can I clone a single file from git?

You can't clone a single file using git. Git is a distributed version control system, the Idea behind its clone functionality is to have a complete copy of project and all versions of files related to that project.

How do I pull a specific commit?

How do I pull a specific commit? The short answer is: you cannot pull a specific commit from a remote. However, you may fetch new data from the remote and then use git-checkout COMMIT_ID to view the code at the COMMIT_ID .


4 Answers

If you wish to replace/overwrite the content of a file in your current branch with the content of the file from a previous commit or a different branch, you can do so with these commands:

git checkout 08618129e66127921fbfcbc205a06153c92622fe path/to/file.txt

or

git checkout mybranchname path/to/file.txt

You will then have to commit those changes in order for them to be effective in the current branch.

like image 31
c-a Avatar answered Oct 16 '22 16:10

c-a


Using git show

To complete your own answer, the syntax is indeed

git show object
git show $REV:$FILE
git show somebranch:from/the/root/myfile.txt
git show HEAD^^^:test/test.py

The command takes the usual style of revision, meaning you can use any of the following:

  1. branch name (as suggested by ash)
  2. HEAD + x number of ^ characters
  3. The SHA1 hash of a given revision
  4. The first few (maybe 5) characters of a given SHA1 hash

Tip It's important to remember that when using "git show", always specify a path from the root of the repository, not your current directory position.

(Although Mike Morearty mentions that, at least with git 1.7.5.4, you can specify a relative path by putting "./" at the beginning of the path. For example:

git show HEAD^^:./test.py

)

Using git restore

With Git 2.23+ (August 2019), you can also use git restore which replaces the confusing git checkout command

git restore -s <SHA1>     -- afile
git restore -s somebranch -- afile

That would restore on the working tree only the file as present in the "source" (-s) commit SHA1 or branch somebranch.
To restore also the index:

git restore -s <SHA1> -SW -- afile

(-SW: short for --staged --worktree)


As noted in the comments by starwarswii

It lets you pipe the contents into a file, which is great if you want to just quickly compare files from a commit.

E.g. you can do:

git show 1234:path/to/file.txt > new.txt 
git show 1234~:path/to/file.txt > old.txt

then compare them.


Using low-level git plumbing commands

Before git1.5.x, this was done with some plumbing:

git ls-tree <rev>
show a list of one or more 'blob' objects within a commit

git cat-file blob <file-SHA1>
cat a file as it has been committed within a specific revision (similar to svn cat). use git ls-tree to retrieve the value of a given file-sha1

git cat-file -p $(git-ls-tree $REV $file | cut -d " " -f 3 | cut -f 1)::

git-ls-tree lists the object ID for $file in revision $REV, this is cut out of the output and used as an argument to git-cat-file, which should really be called git-cat-object, and simply dumps that object to stdout.


Note: since Git 2.11 (Q4 2016), you can apply a content filter to the git cat-file output.

See commit 3214594, commit 7bcf341 (09 Sep 2016), commit 7bcf341 (09 Sep 2016), and commit b9e62f6, commit 16dcc29 (24 Aug 2016) by Johannes Schindelin (dscho).
(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 7889ed2, 21 Sep 2016)

git config diff.txt.textconv "tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m <"
git cat-file --textconv --batch

Note: "git cat-file --textconv" started segfaulting recently (2017), which has been corrected in Git 2.15 (Q4 2017)

See commit cc0ea7c (21 Sep 2017) by Jeff King (peff).
(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit bfbc2fc, 28 Sep 2017)

like image 109
VonC Avatar answered Oct 16 '22 16:10

VonC


You need to provide the full path to the file:

git show 27cf8e84bb88e24ae4b4b3df2b77aab91a3735d8:full/repo/path/to/my_file.txt
like image 41
Milan Babuškov Avatar answered Oct 16 '22 17:10

Milan Babuškov


The easiest way is to write:

git show HASH:file/path/name.ext > some_new_name.ext

where:

  • HASH is the Git revision SHA-1 hash number
  • file/path/name.ext is name of the file you are looking for
  • some_new_name.ext is path and name where the old file should be saved

Example

git show 27cf8e84bb88e24ae4b4b3df2b77aab91a3735d8:my_file.txt > my_file.txt.OLD

This will save my_file.txt from revision 27cf8e as a new file with name my_file.txt.OLD

It was tested with Git 2.4.5.

If you want to retrieve deleted file you can use HASH~1 (one commit before specified HASH).

EXAMPLE:

git show 27cf8e84bb88e24ae4b4b3df2b77aab91a3735d8~1:deleted_file.txt > deleted_file.txt
like image 31
jmarceli Avatar answered Oct 16 '22 17:10

jmarceli