In git, how do I view a previous version of an image file?

Question

I know I can git-show the previous version of a file, but I've got images in my repository! When I git show <revision>:<path-to-image>, it unhelpfully opens them in a pager...

It seems git show doesn't consider environment variables for this: I've tried setting EDITOR=gimp and PAGER=gimp, even VISUAL=gimp to no effect. I can't find anything in man git show about changing the pager application either.

As a workaround, I can git stash save my current changes, git checkout the revision, open the file, checkout back to where I was and git stash apply, but that's a lot of effort that shouldn't be.

How do I do this properly?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 05 '13 at 00:14

2

You can try piping it to gimp:

git show <revision>:<path-to-image> | gimp

answered Dec 05 '13 at 00:14

qmorgan

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Elegant! This works great for GIMP because it reads `stdin`. (For image editors that don't, `> /tmp/a.png` and open from there, I guess.) – Anko - inactive in protest Dec 05 '13 at 00:38

In git, how do I view a previous version of an image file?

1 Answers1