git resurrect to bring back deleted files from the dead

Ever deleted a file several commits away and then suddenly realizing that you actually need it ? Well, here's an easy way to get your file back.

First of all, we'll get the commit in which the file has been deleted with : git log --diff-filter=D --format=format:%H -- {your_filename}

--diff-filter=D will only keep commits where files gets deleted, --format=format:%H will only display the commit hash and finally the -- is a separator between your options and the argument. Argument should be your filename, and it even accepts * as a wildcard.

Once you got the commit hash, it's just a matter of checking the file out using git checkout {hash}~1 {your_filename}. The ~1 targets the previous commit, right before the file gets deleted.

All wrapped up in a nice shell script, here is what it looks like :

#!/usr/bin/env bash
filename=$1
# We first find the commit where the file was deleted
hash=$(git log --diff-filter=D --format=format:%H -- $filename)
# We then bring it back from the dead
git checkout $hash~1 $filename

I've aliased mine to git resurrect.

Tags : #resurrect, #git

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