How do I copy a version of a single file from one git branch to another?

Question

I've got two branches that are fully merged together.

However, after the merge is done, I realise that one file has been messed up by the merge (someone else did an auto-format, gah), and it would just be easier to change to the new version in the other branch, and then re-insert my one line change after bringing it over into my branch.

So what's the easiest way in git to do this?

Answer 1

Run this from the branch where you want the file to end up:

git checkout otherbranch myfile.txt

General formulas:

git checkout <commit_hash> <relative_path_to_file_or_dir>
git checkout <remote_name>/<branch_name> <file_or_dir>

Some notes (from comments):

• Using the commit hash you can pull files from any commit
• This works for files and directories
• overwrites the file myfile.txt and mydir
• Wildcards don't work, but relative paths do
• Multiple paths can be specified

an alternative:

git show commit_id:path/to/file > path/to/file