Git: How do I clone a subdirectory only of a Git repository?

Question

I have my Git repository which, at the root, has two sub directories:

/finisht
/static

When this was in SVN, /finisht was chec

Answer 1

Git 1.7.0 has “sparse checkouts”. See “core.sparseCheckout” in the git config manpage, “Sparse checkout” in the git read-tree manpage, and “Skip-worktree bit” in the git update-index manpage.

The interface is not as convenient as SVN’s (e.g. there is no way to make a sparse checkout at the time of an initial clone), but the base functionality upon which simpler interfaces could be built is now available.