Re: [PATCH 5/5] doc: git-checkout: clarify restoring files section

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 28, 2025, 20:38 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq7bynuqqc.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <2efb789d-db2d-4dae-ae81-373bd231c3c6@app.fastmail.com>

"Julia Evans" <julia@jvns.ca> writes:

> $ git checkout HEAD:Documentation/ git-commit.adoc
>
> to restore `file.txt` into a different directory than it was originally.

It probably is handy when you want to cross a rename boundary to backport a new thing into an old history (or vice versa). Something like

    $ git checkout v1.0.0
    $ git checkout v1.7.1:builtin cat-file.c

perhaps.

Show 5 quoted lines

> What I would tell a friend is
> "<tree-ish> 99% of the time just means "commit or something
> which resolves to a commit, but Git has made it more general for
> a reason I don't understand", but of course that's not the right
> thing to say in the Git documentation :)

You are describing commit-ish (which allows an annotated or signed tag that points at a commit).