I performed the below steps -

1. Initialize a new git repository using git init.
2. Add some files to it.
3. Perform git add.
4. Delete a file using git rm -f <fileName>

How to retrieve the deleted file above here? Kindly note there are no commits yet.

CodePudding user response：

Since you have run git add, the content of the file has been written in git objects store.

Run the following command :

git fsck --full --unreachable
# in the output, you should see lines looking like :
unreachable blob 08bf360988858a012dab3af4e0b0ea5f370a2ae8
unreachable blob 21bf7ea93f9f9cc2b3ecbed0e5ed4fa45c75eb89
unreachable blob 08c12ef37075732cf4645269ab5687ba6ba68943
...

Since you have no commit, you should have only a few lines like the above. You can inspect the content of each blob (a blob is a file in git parlance) :

git show 08bf360988858a012dab3af4e0b0ea5f370a2ae8

Once you have found the one you expect, just redirect the output :

git show 21bf7ea93f9f9cc2b3ecbed0e5ed4fa45c75eb89 > back-from-the-dead.txt

I have posted a few more details in this other answer