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Fetching/checking out files without Cloning the Entire GIT Repository [message #1724558]

Wed, 24 February 2016 11:00

Eclipse User

I have tens of thousands of files in a GIT Remote Repository within the Master branch. Each set of files are organized within a folder/subfolder structure.

At a given time, I only need 5 files. If there a way for me to 'fetch' those 5 files without cloning master branch of the GIT Repository onto my local machine? If so, how can I do this?

Re: Fetching/checking out files without Cloning the Entire GIT Repository [message #1724936 is a reply to message #1724558]

Sat, 27 February 2016 05:53

Eclipse User

You can't since Git is a distributed repository which requires that you first clone the repository.

You can leave out branches you don't need (EGit's clone wizard has a page to select which ones should be cloned).
In native git you can use [1]
$ git clone --single-branch --branch <branch name>
to achieve that.

And, if you are using native git, you can use shallow clone to not fetch all versions [1]
$ git clone --depth <n>

But selectively fetching only a few files is not supported through standard git protocol.
Specific git servers may provide additional, non-standard APIs to enable such operations.

[1] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone

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