threads / discuss / 13023

question about git and remote repositories

Subject: question about git and remote repositories

## tl;dr

3 messages between Apr 8, 2008 and Apr 8, 2008.

replies: 2people: 3as markdown or json

Ittay Dror· Apr 8, 2008, 19:08 UTC · lore

Hi,

If I want to start working on a project that uses git (and I want to use git also), I first need to clone the project's repo. That is very slow (using the git:// protocol). Are there alternatives? For example, as far as I understand, if all I want is to get the latest commit in HEAD, branch from it and start working, then all git really needs to have is all objects referenced from that commit (commit, trees, blobs) and that's it, right? (as long as I don't expect to see full log of past operations)

Thanks, Ittay

-- 
Ittay Dror <ittayd@tikalk.com>
Tikal <http://www.tikalk.com>
Tikal Project <http://tikal.sourceforge.net>

Michele Ballabio· Apr 8, 2008, 20:08 UTC · re: Ittay Dror · lore

Re: question about git and remote repositories

On Tuesday 08 April 2008, Ittay Dror wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> If I want to start working on a project that uses git (and I want to use 
> git also), I first need to clone the project's repo. That is very slow 
> (using the git:// protocol). Are there alternatives? For example, as far 
> as I understand, if all I want is to get the latest commit in HEAD, 
> branch from it and start working, then all git really needs to have is 
> all objects referenced from that commit (commit, trees, blobs) and 
> that's it, right? (as long as I don't expect to see full log of past 
> operations)

In git terms, that is called a "shallow clone". For example:

git clone --depth 5 git://site.com/repo.git

would clone all the heads of repo.git along with their 5 most recent commits.

You can make history deeper with

git-fetch --depth 20 git://site.com/repo.git branch

See the glossary, technical/shallow.txt, git-clone and git-fetch man pages.

Avery Pennarun· Apr 8, 2008, 20:24 UTC · re: Ittay Dror · lore

Re: question about git and remote repositories

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Ittay Dror <ittayd@tikalk.com> wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> For example, as far as
> I understand, if all I want is to get the latest commit in HEAD, branch from
> it and start working, then all git really needs to have is all objects
> referenced from that commit (commit, trees, blobs) and that's it, right? (as
> long as I don't expect to see full log of past operations)

It can be quite addictive to have the entire revision history of the entire project sitting locally on your disk. Once you've tried it, it's hard to go back. :)

But if you still want only the last few revisions, try using the --depth option to git-clone.

Have fun,

Avery