git - copy all files from one branch to arbitrary folder in current branch, unstaged

Question

Lets say I have the following two branches and the local branch is 'mybranch'

master
master\file.txt
master\directory\file2.txt
...

mybranch
mybranch\otherfile.txt

I'd like to create a new directory, call it 'test'. I'd like to put ALL of the contents of master into mybranch\test. I don't want those files and directories staged, just copied.

I've tried git checkout mybranch -- with various combinations of wildcards, slashes, dots, and I just can't get it to work.

So in this example, my end result would be

mybranch
mybranch\otherfile.txt
mybranch\test\file.txt
mybranch\test\directory\file2.txt

Can this be done without switching branches?

Looks like you could do this with `git archive`, see first answer to [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/160608/how-to-do-a-git-export-like-svn-export). — tcovo, Mar 26 '12 at 17:32

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

5

As suggested in answer to this question, you can use git archive to retrieve the contents of a commit, and then extract the archive to the desired location:

git archive master | tar -x -C test

edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

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answered Mar 26 '12 at 19:39

tcovo

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git - copy all files from one branch to arbitrary folder in current branch, unstaged

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