Git: How to pull a single file from a server repository in Git?

Question

I am working on a site with a server running Git. I am using Git for deployment (not GitHub). This was set up prior to my involvement using a hook method, and I referred to this

Answer 1

This windows batch works regardless of whether or not it's on GitHub. I'm using it because it shows some stark caveats. You'll notice that the operation is slow and traversing hundreds of megabytes of data, so don't use this method if your requirements are based on available bandwidth/R-W memory.

sparse_checkout.bat

pushd "%~dp0"
if not exist .\ms-server-essentials-docs mkdir .\ms-server-essentials-docs
pushd .\ms-server-essentials-docs
git init
git remote add origin -f https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windowsserverdocs.git
git config core.sparseCheckout true
(echo EssentialsDocs)>>.git\info\sparse-checkout
git pull origin master

=>

C:\Users\user name\Desktop>sparse_checkout.bat

C:\Users\user name\Desktop>pushd "C:\Users\user name\Desktop\"

C:\Users\user name\Desktop>if not exist .\ms-server-essentials-docs mkdir .\ms-server-essentials-docs

C:\Users\user name\Desktop>pushd .\ms-server-essentials-docs

C:\Users\user name\Desktop\ms-server-essentials-docs>git init Initialized empty Git repository in C:/Users/user name/Desktop/ms-server-essentials-docs/.git/

C:\Users\user name\Desktop\ms-server-essentials-docs>git remote add origin -f https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windowsserverdocs.git Updating origin remote: Enumerating objects: 97, done. remote: Counting objects: 100% (97/97), done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (44/44), done. remote: Total 145517 (delta 63), reused 76 (delta 53), pack-reused 145420 Receiving objects: 100% (145517/145517), 751.33 MiB | 32.06 MiB/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (102110/102110), done. From https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windowsserverdocs * [new branch]
1106-conflict -> origin/1106-conflict * [new branch]
FromPrivateRepo -> origin/FromPrivateRepo * [new branch]
PR183 -> origin/PR183 * [new branch]
conflictfix -> origin/conflictfix * [new branch]
eross-msft-patch-1 -> origin/eross-msft-patch-1 * [new branch]
master -> origin/master * [new branch] patch-1
-> origin/patch-1 * [new branch] repo_sync_working_branch -> origin/repo_sync_working_branch * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-1 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-1 * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-2 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-2 * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-3 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-3 * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-4 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-4 * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-5 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-5 * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-6 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-6 * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-7 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-7 * [new branch]
shortpatti-patch-8 -> origin/shortpatti-patch-8

C:\Users\user name\Desktop\ms-server-essentials-docs>git config core.sparseCheckout true

C:\Users\user name\Desktop\ms-server-essentials-docs>(echo EssentialsDocs ) 1>>.git\info\sparse-checkout

C:\Users\user name\Desktop\ms-server-essentials-docs>git pull origin master
From https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windowsserverdocs
* branch master -> FETCH_HEAD