Git: Checkout only files without repository?

The git-archive manpage contains the following example:

git archive --format=tar --prefix=junk/ HEAD | (cd /var/tmp/ && tar xf -)

Create a tar archive that contains the contents of the latest commit on the current branch, and extract it in the ‘/var/tmp/junk’ directory.

Or you can use low level git-checkout-index, which manpage contains the following example:

Using git checkout-index to “export an entire tree”

The prefix ability basically makes it trivial to use ‘git checkout-index‘ as an “export as tree” function. Just read the desired tree into the index, and do

   $ git checkout-index --prefix=git-export-dir/ -a

git checkout-index will “export” the index into the specified directory.

The final “https://stackoverflow.com/” is important. The exported name is literally just prefixed with the specified string.

Or you can try to use --work-tree option to git wrapper, or GIT_WORK_TREE environment variable, e.g. by using “git --work-tree=/somwehere/else checkout -- .“.