How do I clone into a non-empty directory?

Question

I have directory A with files matching directory B. Directory A may have other needed files. Directory B is a git repo.

I want to clone directory B to directory A bu

Answer 1

I was looking for something similar, and here's what I came up with:

My situation is one where I have an active web tree and I was trying to create a remote repository for it without moving any of the files in the current web tree. Here's what I did:

1. Go to the web tree and run git init
2. Go to the intended location of the repository and run: git clone --bare /path/to/web/repo
3. Edit the config file in my remote repo and remove the [remote "origin"] section.
4. Add a [remote "origin"] section to .git/config in the web tree pointing to the new remote repo.

Answer 2

Warning - this could potentially overwrite files.

git init     
git remote add origin PATH/TO/REPO     
git fetch     
git checkout -t origin/master -f

Modified from @cmcginty's answer - without the -f it didn't work for me

Answer 3

This worked for me:

cd existing_folder
git init
git remote add origin path_to_your_repo.git
git add .
git commit
git push -u origin master

Answer 4

Another simple recipe seems to work well for me:

git clone --bare $URL .git
git config core.bare false

My main use case for checking out to a directory with existing files is to control my Unix dotfiles with Git. On a new account, the home directory will already have some files in it, possibly even the ones I want to get from Git.

Answer 5

Here is what I'm doing:

git clone repo /tmp/folder
cp -rf /tmp/folder/.git /dest/folder/
cd /dest/folder
git checkout -f master

Answer 6

Maybe I misunderstood your question, but wouldn't it be simpler if you copy/move the files from A to the git repo B and add the needed ones with git add?

UPDATE: From the git doc:

Cloning into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is empty.

SOURCE: http://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone