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sparse-checkout

Sometimes I need only a small portion of a huge git repository. Cloning (downloading) and updating whole repository in that situation is just a wast of time. Luckily git allows us to work with only the data we want from a git repository.

For example linuxmint/cinnamon-spices-extensions repository is used to maintain every extension made for Cinnamon Desktop Environment. Let's say we found a bug in the horizontal-osd@berk-karaal extension and want to create a PR to fix it. Does it mean we have to clone and pull whole other extensions in the repository? No, we will specify git to which files we want to work with. To do that:

  1. Clone repository without any file and no checkout:

    $ git clone --filter=blob:none --no-checkout https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-spices-extensions.git

  2. Activate sparse checkout:

    $ cd cinnamon-spices-extensions/
$ git sparse-checkout init
    What is sparse-checkout?

    Sparse checkout allows users to work with a subset of the repository files. When set, git only tracks specified files.

    You can check if sparse-checkout is activated via $ git config core.sparseCheckout command. This will return true if it's activated.

    You may want to read Cone Mode Handling (default mode) and Non-Cone Problems sections.

  3. Specify which files and directories to include in working tree:

    $ git sparse-checkout set horizontal-osd@berk-karaal/
    More on sparse-checkout set

    You can pass multiple directories or files as arguments in this command.

    Selected files are stored in .git/info/sparse-checkout file. You can edit this file in .gitignore format.

    As you can see in the .git/info/sparse-checkout file, git will get all the files in the root path by default (/README.md for example). If you want to avoid that, check out sparse-checkout init --no-cone option.

  4. Checkout to the preferred branch:

    $ git checkout master

    This will pull files selected with sparse-checkout from given branch.

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