Cat Any File in Any Commit With Git

Ever wanted to do take a quick look at the version of some file in a different commit without checking out that commit first? Then read on, here’s how you can do it…

Goal

• Take a quick look at a special version of a file with git withou checking out the commit first
• Commit may be anything denominatable by git (commit, branch, HEAD, remote-branch)
• Branch may differ
• Pipe into another command in the shell
• Overwrite a file with an older version of itself

Tip

Syntax

git show BRANCH:PATH

Examples

• Show the content of file file.txt in commit a09127:

  git show a09127a:file.txt
  

  The commit can be specified with any valid denominator and may belong to any local- or remote-branch…
  • Same as above, but specify the commit relativ to the checked-out commit (handy syntax):

    git show HEAD^^^^:file.txt
    

  • Same as above, but specify the commit relativ to the checked-out commit (readable syntax):

    git show HEAD~4:file.txt
    

  • Same as above for a remote-branch:

    git show remotes/origin/master~4:file.txt
    

  • Same as above for the branch foo in repository bar:

    git show remotes/bar/foo~4:file.txt
    

• Pipe the file into another command:

  git show a09127a:file.txt | wc -l
  

• Overwrite the file with its version four commits ago:

  git show HEAD~4:file.txt > file.txt
  

Explanation

If the path (aka object name) contains a colon (:), git interprets the part before the colon as a commit and the part after it as the path in the tree, denominated by the commit.

• The commit can be specified by its reference, or the name of a local or remote branch
• The path is interpreted as absolut to the origin of the tree, denominated by the commit
• If you want to use a relative path (i.e, current directory), prepend the path accordingly — for example ./file.
  But in this case, be aware that the path is expanded against the checked-out version and not the version, that is specified before the colon!