git show <commit>:<pathname>

This command is useful for retrieving a file's historical content from a specific commit to help understand changes over time.

It works by using the object notation of <commit>:<pathname> to extract the blob of the file from Git's internal object database, letting you inspect the file exactly as it was stored at that commit; you can substitute <commit> with identifiers like HEAD, branch names, or specific commit hashes, and <pathname> with any file path within your repository.

Closely related commands include using git diff to compare changes between commits and git log -p <pathname> to view patch history for a file, with optional shorthand flags available such as -p for patch format and longer flag alternatives providing similar functionality.