git checkout a single file from another branch and put in different folder

Question

I am trying to git checkout a single file from another branch.

Everything is fine, but it puts the file in the same directory tree of the branch that I am checking out.

There is a way to specify a different destination folder during git checkout?

This is what I did:

git checkout other_branch -- path/to/file/xxx

git status:

new file:             path/to/file/xxx

this the result I need (put xxx into the root directory of my working branch):

new file:             ./xxx

Can you explain why you want to check out a file in a different path? You say, "in the root directory of my working branch." In a Git repo, different branches exist in the same directory. It seems like you may be using Git in a way that it was not designed for. — Craig Finch, Sep 01 '21 at 19:41
This answer involving git show is the right one, IMO https://stackoverflow.com/a/888623/192737 — Jeff Trull, Jun 02 '22 at 03:57

score 28 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 01 '19 at 10:30

28

You have 2 options

chain 2 commands, git checkout other_branch -- file.txt && git mv file.txt folder/file.txt
or you can use worktree

answered Apr 01 '19 at 10:30

Avi Fatal

4

Note that this overwrites and removes the old `file.txt` in the current branch. – 12431234123412341234123 Dec 08 '20 at 12:12

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 01 '19 at 10:27

You should be able to just move the file, e.g. in Linux, from your working directory:

mv path/to/file/xxx ./xxx

You would then have to stage the changes resulting from the system move command. You may also try using git mv:

git mv path/to/file/xxx ./xxx

Using git mv should also take care of the staging work for you.

2 Answers2