Question

In git, I’m trying to check out versions of a specific repository into a version folder inside of a temp folder, but when I do

git checkout master~X C:/file/path/temp/versionX

I get the error

error: pathspec 'temp/versionX' did not match any file(s) known to git.

What’s causing the problem and how do I fix it?

Answer 1

git checkout only operates inside the “working tree”. To do what you want, change Git’s idea of what the working tree is. There are a few different ways to do this:

• option 1: run from the Git repository

  cd /path/to/repository
  # git automatically locates the .git directory as usual
  git --work-tree=C:/file/path/temp/versionX checkout master~X
  

• option 2: run from the destination directory

  cd C:/file/path/temp/versionX
  # if --git-dir is specified, Git assumes the working tree is .
  git --git-dir=/path/to/repository/.git checkout master~X
  

• option 3: run from some other directory

  cd /some/arbitrary/path
  # need to specify both the path to .git and the destination directory
  git --git-dir=/path/to/repository/.git \
      --work-tree=C:/file/path/temp/versionX \
      checkout master~X