I just want to get a list of changed files between two revisions, which is simple:
git diff -–name-only commit1 commit2 > /path/to/my/file
B
It works perfectly.
git diff 1526043 82a4f7d --name-only | xargs zip update.zip
git diff 1526043 82a4f7d --name-only |xargs -n 10 zip update.zip
No-one has mentioned cpio which is easy to type, creates hard links and handles spaces in filenames:
git diff --name-only $from..$to | cpio -pld outdir
zip update.zip $(git diff --name-only commit commit)
The following should work fine:
git diff -z --name-only commit1 commit2 | xargs -0 -IREPLACE rsync -aR REPLACE /home/changes/protected/
To explain further:
The -z to with git diff --name-only means to output the list of files separated with NUL bytes instead of newlines, just in case your filenames have unusual characters in them.
The -0 to xargs says to interpret standard input as a NUL-separated list of parameters.
The -IREPLACE is needed since by default xargs would append the parameters to the end of the rsync command. Instead, that says to put them where the later REPLACE is. (That's a nice tip from this Server Fault answer.)
The -a parameter to rsync means to preserve permissions, ownership, etc. if possible. The -R means to use the full relative path when creating the files in the destination.
Update: if you have an old version of xargs, you'll need to use the -i option instead of -I. (The former is deprecated in later versions of findutils.)
Try the following command, which I have tested:
$ cp -pv --parents $(git diff --name-only) DESTINATION-DIRECTORY
Here's a one-liner:
List changed files & pack them as *.zip:
git diff --name-only | zip patched.zip -@
List last committed changed files & pack them as *.zip:
git diff --name-only HEAD~ HEAD | zip patched.zip -@