Yesterday, I discovered git sparse-checkout feature with @sanixdarker post
His article is good, and helped me to discover the feature.
Here I would like to log for archive what I found about git sparse-checkout.
What is git sparse checkout
Here is what git documentation tells about it.
Reduce your working tree to a subset of tracked files
So if you have this kind of repository
README.md
CHANGELOG.md
src/
assests/
tests/
web/
tools
And you want to fetch only src and tests folders, use this.
src/
tests/
Because other folders are irrelevant to your needs.
why would you need this ?
When running CI, you don't need assets (images, css ...) it could speed up the git clone on a huge repository
BUT you can add commit and work as normal. You simply didn't fetch the information of the other folders.
Interesting reads
First, I've read this very interesting article
Faster git clones with sparse checkouts | Aymeric Beaumet
We at REKKI are working on a monorepo that contains all the backend Go code for most of our services and jobs. As time goes by and the size of this repository grows, the time it takes for an initial…
aymericbeaumet.com
EDIT: you can also find an article on dev to from the author himself @aymericbeaumet
and of course the documentation https://www.git-scm.com/docs/git-sparse-checkout
How to use it ?
Start with a git clone minimal fetch
git clone --filter=blob:none --no-checkout <repository>
It's possible to configure a repository with nothing in it, yet (the yet is important)
-
--filter=blob:none: instructs not to fetch any blob object -
--no-checkout: instructs not to automatically checkout HEAD
so here you can git checkout your branch, and it will bring nothing different from if you didn't use --no-checkout
but you can use git sparse-checkout instead.
Sparse checkout
So remember, we only want src and tests folders.
So do this:
git sparse-checkout set src tests
you can also use Note: Here is used Tips you can use --stdin
--stdin
echo -e "src\nassets" | git sparse-checkout set --stdin
echo as an example, using --stdin means you are scripting your usage.
Note: You can also add as you go or need
git sparse-checkout set src
# ...
# and later, even days later
git sparse-checkout add tests
# and here it would fetch the missing files
Note: You can also use --stdin with git sparse-checkout add also
You can use Tips: use git sparse-checkout list to know what you are tracking
git sparse-checkout list at any time to see what is configured.
git sparse-checkout list
src
tests
you can find the configured things in Note: there are other files involved in sparse checkout, you can read the documentation. Warning: I would recommend to use How does git follow this internally
.git/info/sparse-checkout file
/*
!/*/
/src/
/tests/
git sparse-checkout command than playing with those files directly.
So what, then ?
well you can simply fetch and checkout your branch, only the requested folders or files will be present.
README.md
CHANGELOG.md
src/
tests/
whatever/
foobar/
git sparse-checkout set src tests
then if you check out the main branch, you will get this.
git checkout main
README.md
CHANGELOG.md
src/
tests/
Note: by default, all the files (files only, not folders) at the root of your repository will always be checkout. You can see the reason of this on the documentation.
if you don't want this, you will have to use a legacy feature via --no-cone parameter, when setting up your sparse checkout
git sparse-checkout set --no-cone src tests
then if you check out, you will get this.
src/
tests/
I hope you will find this useful.
Top comments (4)
Great article mate !!!
Thanks, I just rewrote it a bit, I posted it a bit fast :P
When you discover that the author of the article you are quoting is not only on dev.to : @aymericbeaumet
But he also wrote, an article on dev.to about it:
Faster git clones with sparse checkouts
Aymeric Beaumet ・ Jul 26 ・ 4 min read
Thank you guy, I loved your article, I will follow you for now
Glad you liked it! Great article