Git: create copy of (historic) remote read-only tag

Question

Here's the deal:

A Github repo features a historical import from CVS, divided in tags of previous releases. I would like to locally build the various releases to document the UI changes (need screenshots for a writeup).

So there is absolutely no need for tracking / further development on the tagged release.

I just want the specific files from a specific tag in a fresh directory so I can install that version.

My Git version is 1.6.0.4

Thanks!

Answer 1

Could you clone directly the right branch?

git clone -b releaseXbranch url_remote_repo localbarerepo_releaseX
cd releaseX

And then update it to the right point in time you want to see for that release (see git-rev-parse syntax):

git checkout @{2005-01-01 00:00:00} # state of that branch in 2005