How to sparsely checkout only one single file from a git repository?

Question

How do I checkout just one file from a git repo?

Answer 1

Minimal Guide

git checkout -- <filename>

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Ref: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout

Dup: Undo working copy modifications of one file in Git?

Answer 2

Originally, I mentioned in 2012 git archive (see Jared Forsyth's answer and Robert Knight's answer), since git1.7.9.5 (March 2012), Paul Brannan's answer:

git archive --format=tar --remote=origin HEAD:path/to/directory -- filename | tar -O -xf -

But: in 2013, that was no longer possible for remote https://github.com URLs.
See the old page "Can I archive a repository?"

The current (2018) page "About archiving content and data on GitHub" recommends using third-party services like GHTorrent or GH Archive.

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So you can also deal with local copies/clone:

You could alternatively do the following if you have a local copy of the bare repository as mentioned in this answer,

git --no-pager --git-dir /path/to/bar/repo.git show branch:path/to/file >file

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Or you must clone first the repo, meaning you get the full history: - in the .git repo - in the working tree.

• But then you can do a sparse checkout (if you are using Git1.7+),:
  • enable the sparse checkout option (git config core.sparsecheckout true)
  • adding what you want to see in the .git/info/sparse-checkout file
  • re-reading the working tree to only display what you need

To re-read the working tree:

$ git read-tree -m -u HEAD

That way, you end up with a working tree including precisely what you want (even if it is only one file)

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Richard Gomes points (in the comments) to "How do I clone, fetch or sparse checkout a single directory or a list of directories from git repository?"

A bash function which avoids downloading the history, which retrieves a single branch and which retrieves a list of files or directories you need.

Answer 3

Normally it's not possible to download just one file from git without downloading the whole repository as suggested in the first answer. It's because Git doesn't store files as you think (as CVS/SVN do), but it generates them based on the entire history of the project.

But there are some workarounds for specific cases. Examples below with placeholders for user, project, branch, filename.

GitHub

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/project/branch/filename

GitLab

wget https://gitlab.com/user/project/raw/branch/filename

GitWeb

If you're using Git on the Server - GitWeb, then you may try in example (change it into the right path):

wget "http://example.com/gitweb/?p=example;a=blob_plain;f=README.txt;hb=HEAD"

GitWeb at drupalcode.org

Example:

wget "http://drupalcode.org/project/ads.git/blob_plain/refs/heads/master:/README.md"

googlesource.com

There is an undocumented feature that allows you to download base64-encoded versions of raw files:

curl "https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/net/+/master/http/transport_security_state_static.json?format=TEXT" | base64 --decode

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In other cases check if your Git repository is using any web interfaces.

If it's not using any web interface, you may consider to push your code to external services such as GitHub, Bitbucket, etc. and use it as a mirror.

If you don't have wget installed, try curl -O (url) alternatively.

Answer 4

git checkout branch_or_version -- path/file

example: git checkout HEAD -- main.c

Answer 5

Say the file name is 123.txt, this works for me:

git checkout --theirs  123.txt

If the file is inside a directory A, make sure to specify it correctly:

git checkout --theirs  "A/123.txt"

Answer 6

If you need a specific file from a specific branch from a remote Git repository the command is:

git archive --remote=git://git.example.com/project.git refs/heads/mybranch path/to/myfile |tar xf -

The rest can be derived from @VonC's answer:

If you need a specific file from the master branch it is:

git archive --remote=git://git.example.com/project.git HEAD path/to/myfile |tar xf -

If you need a specific file from a tag it is:

git archive --remote=git://git.example.com/project.git mytag path/to/myfile |tar xf -