Recently I stumbled upon a great script for extracting modified files between two GIT commits.
This is great for website deployments assuming on client side only ftp is accepted.

#!/bin/bash

BOLD=”\033[1m”
_BOLD=”\033[22m”
RED=”\033[31m”
YELLOW=”\033[33m”
GREEN=”\033[32m”
RESET=”\033[39m”

range=$1
if [ -z “$range” ]; then
echo -e “${BOLD}${RED}You must specify a ‘..‘ argument.${RESET}${_BOLD}”
exit 1
fi

if [ -z “$2″ ]; then
target=”$( pwd )/.deployments”
else
target=$( echo “$2” | sed -e ‘s#/\+$##g’ )
fi

if [ -d “$target” ]; then
echo -ne “Do you wish to remove ‘$target’ first? [Y/n] ”
read prompt
if [ -z “$prompt” ] || [ “$prompt” == “Y” ] || [ “$prompt” == “y” ]; then
echo -e ” ${YELLOW}Purging ‘$target’…${RESET}”
if [ -d “$target” ]; then
rm -Rf “$target”
fi
echo -e ” ${GREEN}Done.${RESET}”
fi
fi

mkdir -p “$target”

LOG=$( git whatchanged -m –oneline “$range” | awk ‘{
if ($1 ~ /^:/) {
print $5 “:” $6
}
}’ | tac )

length=$( echo “$LOG” | wc -l )
manual=”

index=0
for command in $LOG; do
operation=${command:0:1}
filepath=${command:2}
case $operation in
“A” | “M”)
if [ -f “$filepath” ]; then
destination=$( dirname “$target/$filepath” )
filename=$( basename “$filepath” )
mkdir -p “$destination”
cp -f “$filepath” “$target/$filepath”
fi
;;
“D”)
manual=”$manual\n$filepath”
;;
*)
echo -e “${BOLD}${RED}Unknown operation $operation on file $filepath.${RESET}${_BOLD}”
exit 4
;;
esac
let “index++”
echo -ne “\r${YELLOW}Processing ${length} files…${RESET} $( echo “scale=2; ( $index / $length ) * 100.00″ | bc )%”
done
echo

if [ ! -z “$manual” ]; then
echo $( echo -e “$manual” | sed -e ‘s/^\s\+//g’ | sort -u ) > “$target/.delete”
echo -e “[WARN] Please manually delete the files listed in ‘${BOLD}.delete${_BOLD}'”
fi

echo -e “${GREEN}Done.${RESET}”

save it as git-extract and use it as:

git-extract from_old_commit_hash..to_new_commit_hash

All the credits go to: http://blog.angeloff.name/post/1490030701/extract-changed-files-from-git-and-prepare-a-deployment