Git: copy all files in a directory from another branch

How do I copy all files in a directory from another branch? I can list all of the files in that directory by doing

git ls-tree master:dirname

I can then copy all of the files individually by doing

git checkout master -- dirname/filename

However, using wildcards has so far been a total fail. This does nothing:

git checkout master -- dirname/*.png

Though I guess I can use a bash script to do that, there has to be an easier way, right?

As you are not trying to move the files around in the tree, you should be able to just checkout the directory:

git checkout master -- dirname

If there are no spaces in paths, and you are interested, like I was, in files of specific extension only, you can use

git checkout otherBranch -- $(git ls-tree --name-only -r otherBranch | egrep '*.java')

To copy the directory without tracking it:

git restore --source master dirname