Git merge specific file from another branch

#git #gitmerge #gitbranch

There are two teams working on the same project and they realize a common problem that was already resolved by one side, but the status of work in each branch is in progress and to make a merge can be unsafe.

How to solve this problem?

There is a safe solution: merge a specific file from another branch. And there is the steps:

$ git checkout <another-branch> <path-to-file> [<one-more-file> ...]
$ git status
$ git commit -m "'Merge' specific file from '<another-branch>'"

That's it!

Here is a more detailed approach.

Oldest comments (11)

Drew Bragg • Aug 24 '18 • Edited

Was literally JUST talking about this today, thanks!

Jonathan Martin • Aug 24 '18

One of those things I learn today and need to use tomorrow.

pr00thmatic • Jun 6 '19

this doesn't actually merge the file... it just overwrites it with the version in the another branch!!

Marvin • Sep 13 '19

You're actually right

lejma • Aug 26 '19

this works slightly differently than advertised, it does not "merge" a specific file, it "checks out" a specific file, when you have a different version of your file and you actually want to merge those it doesnt work, git checkout branch filename just overrides yours without any prompt to merge differences

Marvin • Sep 13 '19

What this does is replace a file on a branch with the file from the other branch.The actual solution would look like this:

Say I had a file1.txt in branch B I wanted to merge with a file1.txt in branch A.

git checkout A

git checkout --patch B file1.txt

1.First, get yourself to branch A(Where you want to do the merge).
2.Patch with the file from branch B.

If your file1.txt does not exist in branch A , leave out the option --patch.
Note that once this command is run, you can accept options that will be provided in the terminal. You can choose to accept with the y or regect with n and so on