Download a specific tag with Git

Question

I'm trying to figure out how I can download a particular tag of a Git repository - it's one version behind the current version.

I saw there was a tag for the previous version on the git web page, with object name of something long hex number.

But the version name is "Tagged release 1.1.5" according the site.

I tried a command like this (with names changed):

git clone http://git.abc.net/git/abc.git my_abc

And I did get something - a directory, a bunch of subdirectories, etc.

If it's the whole repository, how do I get at the version I'm seeking? If not, how do I download that particular version?

Answer 1

git clone --branch my_abc http://git.abc.net/git/abc.git

Will clone the repo and leave you on the tag you are interested in.

Documentation for 1.8.0 of git clone states.

--branch can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in the resulting repository.

Answer 2

For checking out only a given tag for deployment, I use e.g.:

git clone -b 'v2.0' --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/git/git.git

This seems to be the fastest way to check out code from a remote repository if one has only interest in the most recent code instead of in a complete repository. In this way, it resembles the 'svn co' command.

Answer 3

Working off of Peter Johnson's answer, I created a nice little alias for myself:

alias gcolt="git checkout \`git tag | sort -V | tail -1\`"

aka 'git checkout latest tag'.

This relies on the GNU version of sort, which appropriately handles situations like the one lOranger pointed out:

v1.0.1
...
v1.0.9
v1.0.10

If you're on a mac, brew install coreutils and then call gsort instead.

Answer 4

I do this is via the github API:

curl -H "Authorization: token %(access_token)s" -sL -o /tmp/repo.tar.gz "http://api.github.com/repos/%(organisation)s/%(repo)s/tarball/%(tag)s" ;\
tar xfz /tmp/repo.tar.gz -C /tmp/repo --strip-components=1 ; \

Answer 5

Checking out Tags

If you want to view the versions of files a tag is pointing to, you can do a git checkout, though this puts your repository in “detached HEAD” state, which has some ill side effects:

$ git checkout 2.0.0
Note: checking out '2.0.0'.

You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this
state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.

If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do so (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:

  git checkout -b <new-branch-name>

HEAD is now at 99ada87... Merge pull request #89 from schacon/appendix-final

$ git checkout 2.0-beta-0.1
Previous HEAD position was 99ada87... Merge pull request #89 from schacon/appendix-final
HEAD is now at df3f601... add atlas.json and cover image

In “detached HEAD” state, if you make changes and then create a commit, the tag will stay the same, but your new commit won’t belong to any branch and will be unreachable, except for by the exact commit hash. Thus, if you need to make changes—say you’re fixing a bug on an older version, for instance—you will generally want to create a branch:

$ git checkout -b version2 v2.0.0
Switched to a new branch 'version2'

If you do this and make a commit, your version2 branch will be slightly different than your v2.0.0 tag since it will move forward with your new changes, so do be careful.

Answer 6

You can use git archive to download a tar ball for a given tag or commit id:

git archive --format=tar --remote=[hostname]:[path to repo] [tag name] > tagged_version.tar

You can also export a zip archive of a tag.

1. List tags:

   git tag
   
   0.0.1
   0.1.0
   

2. Export a tag:

   git archive -o /tmp/my-repo-0.1.0.zip --prefix=my-repo-0.1.0/ 0.1.0
   

3. Notes:

   • You do not need to specify the format. It will be picked up by the output file name.
   • Specifying the prefix will make your code export to a directory (if you include a trailing slash).