git checkout <commit> -- <pathname>

This command is useful when you need to recover an earlier version of a file or compare changes by reverting a file to its state at a particular commit.

It retrieves the version of the specified file or directory from the commit indicated by <commit> and applies it to your working directory without switching branches, enabling you to restore or inspect past states as needed. It separates the commit reference from the file path using the -- syntax to explicitly indicate that the following argument is a file path rather than a branch or tag name.

For a related operation, you might also use git checkout <branch> -- <file> to pull file versions from a branch, or, in newer versions of git, use git restore <pathname> --source=<commit> which offers a more focused alternative for restoring files; these variations allow you to tailor your workflow based on the scenario at hand.