How to Use the `git archive` Command (with examples)

Git is a powerful version control system that allows developers to track and manage changes to their codebase. One useful command in Git is git archive, which enables you to create archives of files from a named tree, such as the current HEAD or a specific branch. In this article, we will explore various use cases of the git archive command and provide code examples for each use case.

Use Case 1: Create a tar archive from the current HEAD and print it to stdout

Code:

git archive --verbose HEAD

Motivation:

Creating an archive of the current HEAD can be useful when you want to share a snapshot of your code with someone else. Archiving the current HEAD allows you to bundle all the files and directories present in your repository at that particular point in time, without including any Git-specific metadata.

Explanation:

• --verbose: This option displays additional information about the archiving process, such as the names of the files being archived.
• HEAD: Specifies the commit or tree to be used as the input for the archive. In this case, we want to use the current HEAD, which represents the latest commit in the repository.

Example Output:

app.js
index.html
styles.css
...

The output will list all the files included in the archive, along with their relative paths.

Use Case 2: Create a zip archive from the current HEAD and print it to stdout

Code:

git archive --verbose --format=zip HEAD

Motivation:

Creating a zip archive instead of a tar archive can be beneficial in scenarios where the recipient of the archive is using a platform that does not have built-in support for opening tar files, but is capable of handling zip files.

Explanation:

• --format=zip: This option specifies the format of the archive. By using zip, we are instructing Git to create a zip archive instead of the default tar archive.

Example Output:

app.js
index.html
styles.css
...

The output will be similar to the previous use case, but the archive will be in zip format.

Use Case 3: Create a zip archive from the current HEAD and write it to a file

Code:

git archive --verbose --output=path/to/file.zip HEAD

Motivation:

Saving the archive to a file instead of printing it to stdout allows you to store the snapshot of your code for later use or distribution. This can be useful, for example, when you want to send the archive as an email attachment or deploy it to a web server.

Explanation:

• --output=path/to/file.zip: This option specifies the path and filename for the output archive. Replace path/to/file.zip with the desired location and name of the zip file.

Example Output:

No output will be displayed in the terminal. The zip archive will be created and saved to the specified file path.

Use Case 4: Create a tar archive from the latest commit on a specific branch

Code:

git archive --output=path/to/file.tar branch_name

Motivation:

Creating an archive of the latest commit on a specific branch can be useful when you want to package and distribute a specific version of your code. This is particularly valuable when working on multiple features or bug fixes simultaneously and need to share a specific version with other team members or stakeholders.

Explanation:

• branch_name: Specifies the name of the branch from which you want to create the archive.

Example Output:

app.js
index.html
styles.css
...

The output will be similar to the previous use cases, but the archive will contain the files from the latest commit on the specified branch.

Use Case 5: Create a tar archive from the contents of a specific directory

Code:

git archive --output=path/to/file.tar HEAD:path/to/directory

Motivation:

Archiving the contents of a specific directory can be helpful when you want to extract and work with only a subset of your codebase. By creating an archive of a specific directory, you can isolate and share a portion of your code without exposing unrelated files or directories.

Explanation:

• HEAD:path/to/directory: Specifies the commit (in this case, the latest HEAD) and the path to the directory you want to include in the archive.

Example Output:

directory/file1.txt
directory/file2.txt
...

The output will list all the files included in the archive, starting from the specified directory.

Use Case 6: Prepend a path to each file to archive it inside a specific directory

Code:

git archive --output=path/to/file.tar --prefix=path/to/prepend/ HEAD

Motivation:

Prepending a path to each file in the archive allows you to organize the extracted files within a specific directory. This can be useful when you want to maintain a consistent directory structure across different versions or distributions of your code.

Explanation:

• --prefix=path/to/prepend/: This option adds the specified path as a prefix to each file included in the archive.

Example Output:

path/to/prepend/app.js
path/to/prepend/index.html
path/to/prepend/styles.css
...

The output will list all the files included in the archive, with the specified prefix added to their relative paths.

Conclusion:

In this article, we explored various use cases of the git archive command and provided code examples for each use case. From archiving the current HEAD to specifying a directory or branch, the git archive command offers flexibility in creating archives tailored to your specific needs. By understanding and utilizing these different options, you can easily package and distribute snapshots of your codebase to share with others or store for future use.