If you are not familiar with Git, check out our getting started article. These examples are based on Linux. Let's say you've added and commited example.txt in Git, and example.txt contains the following.

Foo

Then you replaced Foo with Bar, and commited example.txt.

Bar

The git log will show both commits.

afba75a second commit
741785c first commit

The git show command can be used to view the content of the file at a specific commit. The syntax of git show is:

git show <commit id>:<path to file>

The git show command can be used to determine the appropriate path to the file.

git show <commit id> --name-only

Which will return a result such as:

misc/example.com

In this example, the state of the file in first commit will be displayed.

git show 741785c:misc/example.txt

Which will have Foo, in this example.

Foo

In this example, the state of the file in second commit will be displayed.

git show afba75a:misc/example.txt

Which will have Bar, in this example.

Bar