Checkout all files from branch, without changing HEAD nor existing files

git

What is the best way to checkout/merge all files from a branch into the working directory, that currently do not exist there, but without changing the repository state, HEAD, or existing files?

Is this possible with a one line command?

Best Answer

git checkout can take paths as an argument, which, if given, leaves HEAD alone, and just checks out those paths into your working directory and index, so you can just use:

git checkout branchname -- .

Related Solutions

Rescuing files and commits from “no branch” in git

You can use git reflog to find the "lost" commits:

$ cd submodule_dir
$ git reflog          # Find the commit
$ git checkout master
$ git cherry-pick $SHA_OF_MISSING_CMMIT

Checkout Git files to a location outside the repository

Yes, this is certainly possible.

Lets say I have a bare repository named /srv/production.git on the destination system/server.

On the destination system I can use the command cd /srv/production.git; GIT_WORK_TREE=/srv/production-www/ git checkout -f

If I am in a non-bare repository the command is slightly different. Lets say I have a non-bare respository at /srv/testing. To checkout that I would use cd /srv/testing/.git; GIT_WORK_TREE=/srv/production-www/ git checkout -f

In fact on my system I even automate this in a post-commit hook in my production.git repository. So when you push to production.git the latest version is automatically check out to the web root.

#!/bin/sh
#
# An example hook script that is called after a successful
# commit is made.
#
# To enable this hook, rename this file to "post-commit".

GIT_WORK_TREE=/srv/production-www/ git checkout -f
# ... misc other commands to verify permissions are set correctly.

If your only access to the remote system is webdav, it certainly should be possible to write a post-commit hook that will checkout to the webdav host, either directly or to a temporary location, which you can then script an upload.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Rescuing files and commits from “no branch” in git

Checkout Git files to a location outside the repository

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