Retrieve a single file from a repository

Question

What is the most efficient mechanism  in respect to data transferred and disk space used  to get the contents of a single file from a remote git repository   So far I ve managed to come up with   git clone --no-checkout --depth 1 git github com foo bar git  amp  amp  cd bar  amp  amp  git show HEAD path to file txt   This still seems overkill   What about getting multiple files from the repo

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It seems to me the easiest way to use the following   wget https   github com name folder file zip raw true

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If you don t mind cloning the entire directory  this small bash zsh function will have the end result of cloning a single file into your current directory  by cloning the repo into a temp directory and removing it afterwards    Pro  You only get the file you want  Con  You still have to wait for the whole repo to clone  git-single-file              if      -lt 2           then                 echo  Usage   0  lt repo url gt   lt file path gt                   return         fi         TEMP DIR   mktemp -d          git clone  1  TEMP DIR         cp  TEMP DIR  2           rm -rf  TEMP DIR

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for bitbucket directly from browser  I used safari     right-click on  View Raw  and choose  Download Linked File

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I use curl  it works with public repos or those using https basic authentication via a web interface   curl -L --retry 20 --retry-delay 2 -O https   github com ACCOUNT REPO raw master PATH TO FILE FILE TXT -u USER PASSWORD  I ve tested it on github and bitbucket  works on both

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The following 2 commands worked for me  git archive --remote  remote repo git url   branch   file to download  -o  tar out file  Downloads file to download as tar archive from branch of remote repository whose url is remote repo git url and stores it in tar out file tar -x -f  tar out file  tar extracts the file to download from tar out file

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If your Git repository hosted on Azure-DevOps  VSTS  you can retrieve a single file with Rest API   The format of this API looks like this    https   dev azure com  organization   apis git repositories  repositoryId  items path  pathToFile  amp api-version 4 1 download true   For example    https   dev azure com  organization   apis git repositories 278d5cd2-584d-4b63-824a-2ba458937249 items scopePath  MyWebSite MyWebSite Views Home  Home cshtml amp download true amp api-version 4 1

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A nuanced variant of some of the answers here that answers the OP s question   git archive --remote git archive-accepting-git-server com foo bar git     HEAD path to file txt   tar -xO path to file txt  gt  file txt

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Github Enterprise Solution   HTTPS DOMAIN https   git your-company com ORGANISATION org REPO NAME my-amazing-library FILE PATH path to some file BRANCH develop GITHUB PERSONAL ACCESS TOKEN  lt your-access-token gt   URL    HTTPS DOMAIN  raw   ORGANISATION    REPO NAME    BRANCH    FILE PATH    curl -H  Authorization  token   GITHUB PERSONAL ACCESS TOKEN     URL   gt     FILE PATH

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Not in general but if you are using Github  For me wget to the raw url turned out to be the best and easiest way to download one particular file  Open the file in the browser and click on  quot Raw quot  button  Now refresh your browser  copy the url and do a wget or curl on it  wget example  wget  https   github abc abc com raw abc folder1 master folder2 myfile py token DDDDnkl92Kw8829jhXXoxBaVJIYW-h7zks5Vy9I-wA 3D 3D  -O myfile py  Curl example  curl  https   example com raw txt   gt  savedFile txt

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I use this    cat    wgetrc check certificate   off    wget https   raw github com jquery jquery master grunt js HTTP request sent  awaiting response    200 OK Length  11339  11K   text plain  Saving to   grunt js

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If you repository supports tokens  for example GitLab  then generate a token for your user then navigate to the file you will download and click on RAW output to get the URL  To download the file use   curl --silent --request GET --header  PRIVATE-TOKEN  replace with your token     http   git example com foo bar sql  --output  tmp bar sql

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Yisrael Dov s answer is the straightforward one  but it doesn t allow compression  You can use --format zip  but you can t directly unzip that with a pipe command like you can with tar  so you need to save it as a temporary file  Here s a script      bin bash  BASENAME  0  function usage       echo  usage   BASENAME  lt remote-repo gt   lt file gt           exit 1      2 -gt         amp  amp    usage     REPO  1 shift FILES     TMPFILE  mktemp  zip git archive -9 --remote  REPO HEAD  FILES -o  TMPFILE unzip  TMPFILE rm  TMPFILE   This works with directories too

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For single file  just use wget command   First  follow the pic below to click  raw  to get the url  otherwise you will download code embedded in html     Then  the browser will open a new page with url start with https   raw githubusercontent com      just enter the command in the terminal    wget https   raw githubusercontent com       A while the file will put in your folder

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It looks like a solution to me  http   gitready com intermediate 2009 02 27 get-a-file-from-a-specific-revision html  git show HEAD 4 index html  gt  local file   where 4 means four revision from now and   is a tilde as mentioned in the comment

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I solved in this way   git archive --remote ssh   git gitlab com user mi-repo git BranchName  path-to-file file name   tar -xO  path-to-file file name  gt   path-to-save-the-file file name   If you want  you could replace  BranchName  for  HEAD

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Related to  Steven Penny s answer  I also use wget  Furthermore  to decide which file to send the output to I use -O    If you are using gitlabs another possibility for the url is   wget  https   git labs your-server your-repo raw master  lt path-to-file gt   -O  lt output-file gt    Unless you have the certificate or you access from a trusted server for the gitlabs installation you need --no-check-certificate as  Kos said  I prefer that rather than modifying  wgetrc but it depends on your needs   If it is a big file you might consider using -c option with wget  To be able to continue downloading the file from where you left it if the previous intent failed in the middle

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If you want to get a file from a specific hash   a remote repository I ve tried git-archive and it didn t work   You would have to use git clone and once the repository is cloned you would have then to use git-archive to make it work   I post a question about how to do it more simpler in git archive from a specific hash from remote

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Following on from Jakub s answer   git archive produces a tar or zip archive  so you need to pipe the output through tar to get the file content   git archive --remote git   git foo com project git HEAD path to directory filename   tar -x   Will save a copy of  filename  from the HEAD of the remote repository in the current directory   The  path to directory part is optional   If excluded  the fetched file will be saved to  lt current working dir gt  path to directory filename  In addition  if you want to enable use of git archive --remote on Git repositories hosted by git-daemon  you need to enable the daemon uploadarch config option  See https   kernel org pub software scm git docs git-daemon html

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If your goal is just to download the file there s a hassle-free application called gget   gget github com gohugoio hugo  hugo extended   Linux-ARM deb    The above example would download single file from hugo repository   https   github com dpb587 gget

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If there is web interface deployed  like gitweb  cgit  Gitorious  ginatra   you can use it to download single file   raw  or  plain  view    If other side enabled it  you can use git archive s  --remote  lt URL gt   option  and possibly limit it to a directory given file resides in   for example     git archive --remote git github com foo bar git --prefix path to  HEAD path to     tar xvf -

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in git version 1 7 9 5 this seems to work to export a single file from a remote  git archive --remote ssh   host pathto repo git HEAD README md   This will cat the contents of the file README md

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To export a single file from a remote   git archive --remote ssh   host pathto repo git HEAD README md   tar -x   This will download the file README md to your current directory   If you want the contents of the file exported to STDOUT   git archive --remote ssh   host pathto repo git HEAD README md   tar -xO   You can provide multiple paths at the end of the command

[git] Retrieve a single file from a repository

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