Re: Extracting a file

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 11:46:01AM +0200, Angelo Borsotti wrote:

quoted

Actually, I did not want to make git behave like a read-only filesystem,
but only to be able to get what is stored in it using some easy to remember
command.

I guess that:

    git mv A B &&
    git checkout HEAD -- A

renames file A in the work, current, directory to B, and then recovers
A from the
repository. This changes the file on which I am working. After having
read the old
A, and understood what changes I make that are not correct, I should delete A,
and rename B back to A.
If something gets wrong with this, I risk to damage my original A.
This is why it is
better not to change it, and instead get a copy of the old one with
another name,
which is what

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

You might also like "git checkout -p HASH -- A", which will let you pick
individual hunks from HASH:A and apply them to your working tree.

There is

    git cat-file --textconv --filters HASH:A >my-temporary-file-to-inspect

which would not touch the index or any tracked working tree file,
other than the target of redirection.

Junio C Hamano wrote:

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 11:46:01AM +0200, Angelo Borsotti wrote:

quoted

Actually, I did not want to make git behave like a read-only filesystem,
but only to be able to get what is stored in it using some easy to remember
command.

I guess that:

    git mv A B &&
    git checkout HEAD -- A

renames file A in the work, current, directory to B, and then recovers
A from the
repository. This changes the file on which I am working. After having
read the old
A, and understood what changes I make that are not correct, I should delete A,
and rename B back to A.
If something gets wrong with this, I risk to damage my original A.
This is why it is
better not to change it, and instead get a copy of the old one with
another name,
which is what

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

You might also like "git checkout -p HASH -- A", which will let you pick
individual hunks from HASH:A and apply them to your working tree.

There is

    git cat-file --textconv --filters HASH:A >my-temporary-file-to-inspect

which would not touch the index or any tracked working tree file,
other than the target of redirection.

Hmm, --textconv and --filters are incompatible with each other, did you
mean "--textconv | --filters"?

Also, this is simpler:

  git cat-file -p HASH:A

Although I don't know how that's better than Angelo's `git show`.

FTR I do often use `git show commit:file` myself. I'm not sure if
we could do something particularly better than that.

-- 
Felipe Contreras