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Is there a way to clone only specific folders from a remote GIT repository ?

+3 votes
1,277 views

When we clone a remote GIT repository, all folders/files will be cloned. This will consume lot of disk space in our local machine.
Is there a way to clone only few folders & exclude others?

This is possible in clearcase snapshot view by changing load rules.

posted Feb 10, 2016 by Shivananda Gavalkar S

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This is called a sparse checkout,  please check the following https://git-scm.com/docs/git-read-tree (last section)
commented Feb 10, 2016 by Salil Agrawal

1 Answer

+2 votes

Suppose you already have a repository, simply enable and configure sparse-checkout and do git read-tree.

Enable sparse-checkout:

git config core.sparsecheckout true

Configure sparse-checkout by listing your desired sub-trees in .git/info/sparse-checkout:

echo some/dir/ >> .git/info/sparse-checkout
echo another/sub/tree >> .git/info/sparse-checkout

Update your working tree:

git read-tree -mu HEAD

I hope I understood your problem correctly.

answer Feb 10, 2016 by anonymous
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