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

I just wrote a script for GitHub.

Usage:

python get_git_sub_dir.py path/to/sub/dir <RECURSIVE>

Answer 2

Just to clarify some of the great answers here, the steps outlined in many of the answers assume that you already have a remote repository somewhere.

Given: an existing git repository, e.g. git@github.com:some-user/full-repo.git, with one or more directories that you wish to pull independently of the rest of the repo, e.g. directories named app1 and app2

Assuming you have a git repository as the above...

Then: you can run steps like the following to pull only specific directories from that larger repo:

mkdir app1
cd app1
git init
git remote add origin git@github.com:some-user/full-repo.git
git config core.sparsecheckout true
echo "app1/" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout
git pull origin master

I mistakenly thought that the sparse-checkout options had to be set on the original repository: this is not the case. You define which directories you want locally, prior to pulling from the remote. Hope this clarification helps someone else.

Answer 3

So i tried everything in this tread and nothing worked for me ... Turns out that on version 2.24 of Git (the one that comes with cpanel at the time of this answer), you don't need to do this

echo "wpm/*" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout

all you need is the folder name

wpm/*

So in short you do this

git config core.sparsecheckout true

you then edit the .git/info/sparse-checkout and add the folder names (one per line) with /* at the end to get subfolders and files

wpm/*

Save and run the checkout command

git checkout master

The result was the expected folder from my repo and nothing else Upvote if this worked for you

Answer 4

EDIT: As of Git 2.19, this is finally possible, as can be seen in this answer.

Consider upvoting that answer.

Note: in Git 2.19, only client-side support is implemented, server-side support is still missing, so it only works when cloning local repositories. Also note that large Git hosters, e.g. GitHub, don't actually use the Git server, they use their own implementation, so even if support shows up in the Git server, it does not automatically mean that it works on Git hosters. (OTOH, since they don't use the Git server, they could implement it faster in their own implementations before it shows up in Git server.)

---

No, that's not possible in Git.

Implementing something like this in Git would be a substantial effort and it would mean that the integrity of the clientside repository could no longer be guaranteed. If you are interested, search for discussions on "sparse clone" and "sparse fetch" on the git mailinglist.

In general, the consensus in the Git community is that if you have several directories that are always checked out independently, then these are really two different projects and should live in two different repositories. You can glue them back together using Git Submodules.

Answer 5

I wrote a .gitconfig [alias] for performing a "sparse checkout". Check it out (no pun intended):

On Windows run in cmd.exe

git config --global alias.sparse-checkout "!f(){ [ $# -eq 2 ] && L=${1##*/} L=${L%.git} || L=$2; mkdir -p \"$L/.git/info\" && cd \"$L\" && git init --template= && git remote add origin \"$1\" && git config core.sparseCheckout 1; [ $# -eq 2 ] && echo \"$2\" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout || { shift 2; for i; do echo $i >> .git/info/sparse-checkout; done }; git pull --depth 1 origin master;};f"

Otherwise:

git config --global alias.sparse-checkout '!f(){ [ $# -eq 2 ] && L=${1##*/} L=${L%.git} || L=$2; mkdir -p "$L/.git/info" && cd "$L" && git init --template= && git remote add origin "$1" && git config core.sparseCheckout 1; [ $# -eq 2 ] && echo "$2" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout || { shift 2; for i; do echo $i >> .git/info/sparse-checkout; done }; git pull --depth 1 origin master;};f'

Usage:

# Makes a directory ForStackExchange with Plug checked out
git sparse-checkout https://github.com/YenForYang/ForStackExchange Plug

# To do more than 1 directory, you have to specify the local directory:
git sparse-checkout https://github.com/YenForYang/ForStackExchange ForStackExchange Plug Folder

The git config commands are 'minified' for convenience and storage, but here is the alias expanded:

# Note the --template= is for disabling templates.
# Feel free to remove it if you don't have issues with them (like I did)
# `mkdir` makes the .git/info directory ahead of time, as I've found it missing sometimes for some reason
f(){
    [ "$#" -eq 2 ] && L="${1##*/}" L=${L%.git} || L=$2;
    mkdir -p "$L/.git/info"
        && cd "$L"
        && git init --template=
        && git remote add origin "$1"
        && git config core.sparseCheckout 1;
    [ "$#" -eq 2 ]
        && echo "$2" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout
        || {
            shift 2;
            for i; do
                echo $i >> .git/info/sparse-checkout;
            done
        };
    git pull --depth 1 origin master;
};
f

Answer 6

Here's a shell script I wrote for the use case of a single subdirectory sparse checkout

coSubDir.sh

localRepo=$1
remoteRepo=$2
subDir=$3


# Create local repository for subdirectory checkout, make it hidden to avoid having to drill down to the subfolder
mkdir ./.$localRepo
cd ./.$localRepo
git init
git remote add -f origin $remoteRepo
git config core.sparseCheckout true

# Add the subdirectory of interest to the sparse checkout.
echo $subDir >> .git/info/sparse-checkout

git pull origin master

# Create convenience symlink to the subdirectory of interest
cd ..
ln -s ./.$localRepo/$subDir $localRepo