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.