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Colin Ramsay
Colin Ramsay

Reputation: 16476

Viewing a Deleted File in Git

I've deleted a file with Git and then committed, so the file is no longer in my working copy. I want to look at the contents of that file, but not actually restore it. How can I do this?

Upvotes: 135

Views: 34390

Answers (4)

Hawkeye Parker
Hawkeye Parker

Reputation: 8630

Here is a way to find a file that was deleted long ago, even if you don't remember the exact name and/or path:

git log --stat=1000 --full-history -- "**/*partial_file_name*.*"

  • --stat=1000 lists all the files in the commits. The 1000 ensures you'll see the entire relative path to the deleted file (https://stackoverflow.com/a/10460154/99717)
  • --full-history shows the reverse commit history for the file, starting with the delete commit.

This way, you can also search for a specific file version in a specific commit by scanning the messages and history.

With the commit hash, you can view the file using:

git show COMMIT_HASH:entire/relative/path/to/deleted_file_name.ext

Getting the relative path right is important, else git will tell you it can't find that path. Also, you have to use a commit hash before the actual file delete commit, which will have nothing, because git show shows you the version of the file in that commit.

Upvotes: 5

Louis
Louis

Reputation: 151441

If this is a file you've deleted a while back and don't want to hunt for a revision, you can use (the file is named foo in this example; you can use a full path):

git show $(git rev-list --max-count=1 --all -- foo)^:foo

The rev-list invocation looks for all the revisions of foo but only lists one. Since rev-list lists in reverse chronological order, then what it lists is the last revision that changed foo, which would be the commit that deleted foo. (This is based on the assumption that git does not allow a deleted file to be changed and yet remain deleted.) You cannot just use the revision that rev-list returns as-is because foo no longer exists there. You have to ask for the one just before it which contains the last revision of the file, hence the ^ in git show.

Upvotes: 72

pdeschen
pdeschen

Reputation: 1379

Since you might not recall the exact path, you can instead get the sha1 from git log then you can simply issue

 git cat-file -p <sha1>

Upvotes: 11

CB Bailey
CB Bailey

Reputation: 792477

git show HEAD^:path/to/file

You can use an explicit commit identifier or HEAD~n to see older versions or if there has been more than one commit since you deleted it.

Upvotes: 182

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