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So far, being the only person on a project, I have been copying/pasting my project folders and renaming them (Ver1, Ver2, Ver3, etc.) as a version control scheme. Now I am trying to switch to Git.

This is what I did:
I initialized a .git folder and added the first version to the Git repository. Then I added all other versions as commits to the git repository and tagged them. So now I have all the versions in the master branch and as tags.

My question is:
How can I (I do not know if checkout is the right word) grab any version from the Git repository and put it in an arbitrary folder without switching branches (or any other operation Git may think it has to do)? Just simply copying a version (any version) from Git to a folder without any connection between the Git repository and the folder?

Chris Johnsen
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donescamillo
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3 Answers3

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Usually you examine historical versions directly in your normal working tree (you can checkout any commit as a “detached HEAD”/“unnamed branch”) or indirectly view the history with with git log (especially the -p option), git blame, et cetera.

But, if you really need to fully unpack an old version, you can use the git archive command to create a tar archive of a particular commit1 (a tag name, a branch name (you will get its tip commit), or a commit object id (i.e. SHA-1 hash value) will work to specify a commit). You can easily pipe the archive into tar to extract it wherever you like.

From your repository directory:

git archive --format=tar branch-or-tag-name-or-commit-id |
  (mkdir /path/to/destination && cd /path/to/destination && tar xf -)

git archive will always work for local repositories. It can also be used with non-local repositories (or local repositories not based in your current working directory) via the --remote option; not all Git hosting services may allow pulling archives (they may not want to spend the CPU time or bandwidth).

1 Actually, you can use use git archive with any tree (i.e. the root directory or any subdirectory represented in any commit), but it is most commonly used with branch tips, tags, and commits.

Chris Johnsen
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  • +1 nice answer. A couple of small things - `tar` is the default format if there's no output file specified to `git archive`, so you don't need that parameter. Also, instead of `cd /path/to/destination && tar xf -` you can just do `tar -C /path/to/destination -x` [as suggested here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3364575/whats-the-best-way-to-extract-a-tree-from-a-git-repository/3364612#3364612). – Mark Longair Mar 26 '11 at 07:14
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do: 

git clone (path to your repo)

or if you don't want the .git meta data do:

git archive (branch)
Kirby Todd
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  • Yes, but I would get the whole repo, not the version/tag I am after. Currently I checkout the the tag I need (this is why I've tagged every commit, so I can check them out), copy the working folder (containing the tag I am after) elsewhere and then checkout the master again, but I am not sure if this is the right way – donescamillo Mar 24 '11 at 12:26
  • You can pass git archive a tag id and it will only check out that tagged version of the tree. – Kirby Todd Mar 24 '11 at 12:32
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    You do not need to tag the commit in order to check it out. You can just checkout the commit. – William Pursell Mar 24 '11 at 13:28
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Your question was:

How can I (I do not know if checkout is the right word) grab any version from the GIT repository and put it in an arbitrary folder without switching branches (or any other operation GIT may think it has to do)?

You want to use the git checkout command:

git checkout myTag1.2.3 
git checkout asdf81274982shjsks 
git checkout origin/develop

The argument to checkout can be either a branch, a tag or a SHA1-hash.

You ALWAYS get the complete repository. You cant checkout parts of it. Remember that git stores snap shots of the complete repository.

rtn
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