Docker - how can I copy a file from an image to a host?

Question

My question is related to this question on copying files from containers to hosts; I have a Dockerfile that fetches dependencies, compiles a build artifact from source, and

Answer 1

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to copy files directly from Docker images. You need to create a container first and then copy the file from the container.

However, if your image contains a cat command (and it will do in many cases), you can do it with a single command:

docker run --rm --entrypoint cat yourimage  /path/to/file > path/to/destination

If your image doesn't contain cat, simply create a container and use the docker cp command as suggested in Igor's answer.