CODEWITHSUNDEEP
gitgit-submodules
demula
demula

Reputation: 1364

How to clone only a folder from a git submodule?

I'm trying to get just a folder from an external github repo to use in my project.

I want my project setup to be like this:

-my_project
    -submodule
        -code.py
    -MY_README
    -.git

And I have the remote repo named some-submodule with following structure:

-submodule
    -code.py
-README
-.gitignore

So I just want the submodule folder added to my project.

But I end up with this after 

git submodule add http://github.com/user/submodule.git submodule

-my_project
    -submodule
        -submodule
            -code.py
        -README
        -.gitignore
    -MY_README
    -.gitignore

I am new to git so I really don't know if it possible using just git. If it is of some help I'm using msysgit on windows.

So, is there anyway that I can get a clean submodule folder in my project from a public repo?

If you're curious of exactly what I'm trying to do I'm trying to take directly from their repos these django plugins 1 2 to add them to my project.

Upvotes: 126

Views: 108211

Answers (4)

JoeyZhong
JoeyZhong

Reputation: 1

This is now possible with sparse-checkout and symbolic links. For more details on how this works, please check out this gist

https://gist.github.com/ZhuoyunZhong/2c08c8549616e03b7f508fea64130558

The general idea is that you first add the submodule, then set up sparse-checkout in the submodule to track only the folders or files you need. Then you could use symbolic links to "place" the folder wherever you want.

Upvotes: 0

Immanuel
Immanuel

Reputation: 165

just

git submodule update --init --recursive

in the root-directory of your project and it should do what you want

Upvotes: -6

dregad
dregad

Reputation: 1240

What you want to do is not feasible because you cannot clone a part of a repository.

See details in duplicate How to change a git submodule to point to a subfolder?

Upvotes: 68

VonC
VonC

Reputation: 1323453

If you:

git submodule add http://github.com/user/submodule.git

directly under my_project, you should end up with the desired organization of directories.

From git submodule add man page:

The optional argument <path> is the relative location for the cloned submodule to exist in the superproject.
If <path> is not given, the "humanish" part of the source repository is used ("repo" for "/path/to/repo.git" and "foo" for "host.xz:foo/.git").

Upvotes: 9

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