retreiving old version of file

[brianmay]

Often I just want to be able to copy and paste sections of old commits. And showing the diff doesn't work, it means having to copy the diff markup and reformat.

Is there any sort of equivalent of the git command to show an old version of a file? e.g.

git show v1.2.0:README.rst

I had a look at https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj/blob/main/docs/git-command-table.md but couldn't find anything.

[scott2000]

jj file show -r <REVISION> <PATHS> should work I think.

[brianmay]

Looks like that works. Thanks.

Wonder if I can possibly remember this now :-)

[arialdomartini]

Adding to this:

• If you wish not only to display, but also to obtain the file in the workspace, you can use jj restore --from <REVISION> <PATH> (which is equivalent to jj file show -r <REVISION> <PATH> > <PATH>

• When it's the case of displaying multiple files and of jumping from one to another, operating on single files might be cumbersome. You might like to use your IDE or editor. A handy move is to get a whole, temporary workspace with jj workspace add --revision <REVISION> ../let-me-see. In ../let-me-see you would have a copy of the whole working directory, at revision <REVISION>.

[brianmay]

Thanks. I had a vague idea of "jj restore" but didn't realize jj had support for multiple work spaces.

[arialdomartini]

Thanks. I had a vague idea of "jj restore" but didn't realize jj had support for multiple work spaces.

For completeness, also Git has support for them - they are called worktrees there https://git-scm.com/docs/git-worktree