Question

I have cloned a Git project into a local Git repository. Then I have done something nasty to one of the files and in that panic I deleted file physically from the drive (rm style.css) and also removed it from Git (git rm style.css).

I want to get the original style.css file back from origin to my development branch. Unfortunately my Git thinks it is up-to-date and won’t do anything.

cd ~/project.me
git status

# On branch dev
nothing to commit (working directory clean)

git pull origin dev

Password for 'https://[e-mail]':
From https://github.com/somewhere/project.me
* branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.

What do I need to do to tell git that I want to download original style.css file back into my dev branch?

Answer 1

Use git checkout. In your case:

git checkout origin/master style.css

This command will update the requested file from the given branch (here the remote branch origin/master).