How to make tar archive from git repository since selected commit?
This question is similar to Git archive all changes except first commit but I need .tar archive as a result not git patch file.
Explanation: I make "modules" for a strange PHP CMS where there is no real mechanism for writing extensions. To ship my modules I have to send only the modified files to clients, while I still have to have all CMS files under Git (all added only in first commit).
So, the recipient of this archive doesn't have the repo but does have the content of some commit, and you're sending replacements he can untar onto that?
It seems git archive's --output option on windows fails at telling the compressor about the redirection, which duly refuses to write compressed output to what it thinks is a terminal, but that's easily worked around:
git archive -o update-old-new.tgz newcommit \
$(git diff --name-only --diff-filter=AM oldcommit..newcommit) | cat
That | cat at the end is the workaround.
I'd forgotten about archive, but using it means you don't have to checkout $newcommit first so this is much better than the earlier checkout;diff|tar combo.
Still, this can't handle an update large enough to blow command-line limits, or spaces or other annoying characters in the pathnames. The fallback is
git checkout newversion
git diff --name-only --diff-filter=AM oldversion.. \
| tar Tczf - update-old-new.tgz