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

Question

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

User · Answer

In Windows  with Git Bash    in your workspace  change dir to the folder where your file lives git show cab485c83b53d56846eb883babaaf4dff2f2cc46   your file ext  gt  old ext

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The easiest way is to write  git show HASH file path name ext  gt  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  gt  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  gt  deleted file txt

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Get the file from a previous commit through checking-out previous commit and copying file    Note which branch you are on    git branch Checkout the previous commit you want  git checkout 27cf8e84bb88e24ae4b4b3df2b77aab91a3735d8 Copy the file you want to a temporary location Checkout the branch you started from   git checkout theBranchYouNoted  Copy in the file you placed in a temporary location Commit your change to git  git commit -m  added file    from previous commit

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This will help you get all deleted files between commits without specifying the path  useful if there are a lot of files deleted   git diff --name-only --diff-filter D  commit 1  commit   xargs git checkout  commit 1

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You need to provide the full path to the file   git show 27cf8e84bb88e24ae4b4b3df2b77aab91a3735d8 full repo path to my file txt

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And to nicely dump it into a file  on Windows at least  - Git Bash     echo   git show 60d8bdfc src services LocationMonitor java    gt  gt  LM 60d8bdfc java   The   quotes are needed so it preserves newlines

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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   branch name  as suggested by ash  HEAD   x number of   characters The SHA1 hash of a given revision The first few  maybe 5  characters of a given SHA1 hash  Tip It s important to remember that when using  quot git show quot   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  quot    quot  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  lt SHA1 gt      -- afile git restore -s somebranch -- afile  That would restore on the working tree only the file as present in the  quot source quot   -s  commit SHA1 or branch somebranch  To restore also the index  git restore -s  lt SHA1 gt  -SW -- afile   -SW  short for --staged --worktree  Using low-level git plumbing commands Before git1 5 x  this was done with some plumbing  git ls-tree  lt rev gt  show a list of one or more  blob  objects within a commit git cat-file blob  lt file-SHA1 gt  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  quot   quot  -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  quot tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m  lt  quot  git cat-file --textconv --batch  Note   quot git cat-file --textconv quot  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

User · Answer

git checkout  SHA1  -- filename   this command get the copied file from specific commit

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Using git show  REV  FILE as it was already pointed out by others is probably the right answer  I m posting another answer because when I tried this method  I sometimes got the following error from git  fatal  path  link foo  exists on disk  but not in  HEAD   The problem occurs when parts of the path to the file are a symbolic link  In those cases  the git show  REV  FILE method will not work  Steps to reproduce    git init     mkdir test   echo hello  gt  test foo   ln -s test link   git add     git commit -m  quot initial commit quot    cat link foo hello   git show HEAD link foo fatal  path  link foo  exists on disk  but not in  HEAD   The problem is  that utilities like realpath don t help here  because the symlink might not exist in the current commit anymore  I don t know about a good general solution  In my case  I knew that the symlink could only exist in the first component of the path  so I solved the problem by using the git show  REV  FILE method twice  This works  because when git show  REV  FILE is used on a symlink  then its target gets printed    git show HEAD link test  Whereas with directories  the command will output a header  followed by the directory content    git show HEAD test tree HEAD test  foo  So in my case  I just checked the output of the first call to git show  REV  FILE and if it was only a single line  then I replaced the first component of my path with the result to resolve the symlink through git

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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

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In addition to all the options listed by other answers  you can use git reset with the Git object  hash  branch  HEAD x  tag       of interest and the path of your file  git reset  lt hash gt   path to file  In your example  git reset 27cf8e8 my file txt  What this does is that it will revert my file txt to its version at the commit 27cf8e8 in the index while leaving it untouched  so in its current version  in the working directory  From there  things are very easy   you can compare the two versions of your file with git diff --cached my file txt you can get rid of the old version of the file with git restore --staged file txt  or  prior to Git v2 23  git reset file txt  if you decide that you don t like it you can restore the old version with git commit -m  quot Restore version of file txt from 27cf8e8 quot  and git restore file txt  or  prior to Git v2 23  git checkout -- file txt  you can add updates from the old to the new version only for some hunks by running git add -p file txt  then git commit and git restore file txt    Lastly  you can even interactively pick and choose which hunk s  to reset in the very first step if you run  git reset -p 27cf8e8 my file txt  So git reset with a path gives you lots of flexibility to retrieve a specific version of a file to compare with its currently checked-out version and  if you choose to do so  to revert fully or only for some hunks to that version   Edit  I just realized that I am not answering your question since what you wanted wasn t a diff or an easy way to retrieve part or all of the old version but simply to cat that version  Of course  you can still do that after resetting the file with  git show  file txt  to output to standard output or git show  file txt  gt  file at 27cf8e8 txt  But if this was all you wanted  running git show directly with git show 27cf8e8 file txt as others suggested is of course much more direct  I am going to leave this answer though because running git show directly allows you to get that old version instantly  but if you want to do something with it  it isn t nearly as convenient to do so from there as it is if you reset that version in the index

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

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