How do you use Git to retrieve just one (or a few) files from a repo?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Partial clone with Git and Mercurial

I switched into the specific directory into which I'd like my repo file to be copied into, and then tried the following:

    git clone git@github.com:path/to/file.java

but it's giving me ERROR: repository not found

Can anyone tell me what's going on, and what's the right thing to do? (a little background doesn't hurt!)

You cannot clone one file, you can only clone repositories. Why don't you just explicitly copy the files? — benjgorman, Apr 04 '12 at 03:30
Possible dup: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2586824/partial-clone-with-git-and-mercurial — amcnabb, Apr 04 '12 at 03:39
Please don't repost questions, instead edit them to add the required details. — Lasse V. Karlsen, Apr 04 '12 at 09:34

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 04 '12 at 03:46

You may want to look into something called a sparse checkout which was implemented in Git 1.7 I believe. Before that I don't think git allowed you to do so although on github you can always copy individual files from their web interface by opening the file and saving it.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 04 '12 at 05:18

0

git works at the repository level, not at the file level (unlike CVS/SVN).

As a result, if you clone you usually clone the whole repo - and a change is tracked as a repository content change - not a simple file change.

answered Apr 04 '12 at 05:18

ptyx

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How do you use Git to retrieve just one (or a few) files from a repo?

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