GIT Checkout to a specific folder

Question

I want to use something similar to   git checkout --  lt path gt   lt file gt    but I want to checkout the file to some folder I choose  rather than the overwriting the local  lt path gt   lt file gt    Any idea

User · Answer

I defined an git alias to achieve just this (before I found this question).

It's a short bash function which saves the current path, switch to the git repo, does a checkout and return where it started.

git checkto develop ~/my_project_git

This e.g. would checkout the develop branch into "~/my_project_git" directory.

This is the alias code inside ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
    checkTo = "!f(){ [ -z \"$1\" ] && echo \"Need to specify branch.\" && \
               exit 1; [ -z \"$2\" ] && echo \"Need to specify target\
               dir\" && exit 2; cDir=\"$(pwd)\"; cd \"$2\"; \
               git checkout \"$1\"; cd \"$cDir\"; };f"

User · Answer

I m using this alias for checking out a branch in a temporary directory    alias      cot     TEMP   mktemp -d   f     git worktree prune  amp  amp  git worktree add  TEMP  1  amp  amp  zsh -c   cd  TEMP  zsh      f    checkout branch in temporary directory   Usage   git cot mybranch   You are then dropped in a new shell in the temporary directory where you can work on the branch  You can even use git commands in this directory   When you re done  delete the directory and run   git worktree prune   This is also done automatically in the alias  before adding a new worktree

User · Answer

If you re working under your feature and don t want to checkout back to master  you can run   cd   myrepo  git worktree add    myrepo master master  git worktree remove    myrepo master   It will create    myrepo master directory with master branch commits  where you can continue work

User · Answer

The above solutions didn t work for me because I needed to check out a specific tagged version of the tree   That s how cvs export is meant to be used  by the way   git checkout-index doesn t take the tag argument  as it checks out files from index   git checkout  lt tag gt  would change the index regardless of the work tree  so I would need to reset the original tree   The solution that worked for me was to clone the repository   Shared clone is quite fast and doesn t take much extra space   The  git directory can be removed if desired   git clone --shared --no-checkout  lt repository gt   lt destination gt  cd  lt destination gt  git checkout  lt tag gt  rm -rf  git   Newer versions of git should support git clone --branch  lt tag gt  to check out the specified tag automatically   git clone --shared --branch  lt tag gt   lt repository gt   lt destination gt  rm -rf  lt destination gt   git

User · Answer

For a single file   git show HEAD abspath to file  gt  file copy

User · Answer

Another solution which is a bit cleaner - just specify a different work tree   To checkout everything from your HEAD  not index  to a specific out directory   git --work-tree  path to outputdir checkout HEAD --     To checkout a subdirectory or file from your HEAD to a specific directory   git --work-tree  path to outputdir checkout HEAD -- subdirname

User · Answer

Adrian s answer threw  fatal  This operation must be run in a work tree   The following is what worked for us    git worktree add  lt new-dir gt  --no-checkout --detach cd  lt new-dir gt  git checkout  lt some-ref gt  --  lt existing-dir gt    Notes     --no-checkout Do not checkout anything into the new worktree  --detach Do not create a new branch for the new worktree   lt some-ref gt  works with any ref  for instance  it works with HEAD 1  Cleanup with git worktree prune

User · Answer

As per Do a  quot git export quot   like  quot svn export quot     You can use git checkout-index for that  this is a low level command  if you want to export everything  you can use -a   git checkout-index -a -f --prefix  destination path    To quote the man pages      The final      on the prefix  is important  The exported name is literally just prefixed with the specified string    If you want to export a certain directory  there are some tricks involved  The command only takes files  not directories  To apply it to directories  use the  find  command and pipe the output to git   find dirname -print0   git checkout-index --prefix  path-to dest  -f -z --stdin   Also from the man pages      Intuitiveness is not the goal here  Repeatability is

User · Answer

Addition to  hasen s answer  You might want to use git ls-files instead of  find to list files to checkout like  git ls-files -z   txt   git checkout-index --prefix  path-to dest  -f -z --stdin  git ls-files ignores uncommitted files

User · Answer

Use git archive branch-index   tar -x -C your-folder-on-PC to clone a branch to another folder  I think  then you can copy any file that you need

[git] GIT: Checkout to a specific folder

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