Is it possible to git clone --filter= without any objects?

At v2.19.0 I was trying to clone a fetch just a single directory: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/600079/how-do-i-clone-a-subdirectory-only-of-a-git-repository/52269934#52269934

I got really close with:

git clone --depth 1 --no-checkout --filter=blob:none \
  "file://$(pwd)/server_repo" local_repo
cd local_repo
git checkout master -- mydir/

The only missing thing is that uneeded tree objects are still being fetched.

If I had a:

git clone --filter=none

for example then that would be done.

Nothing major since those are small, but just looking for the perfect command :-)

On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 12:29 AM Ciro Santilli <ciro.santilli@gmail.com> wrote:

You might be pleased to hear about a series floating on the mailing list, that started at https://public-inbox.org/git/cover.1533854545.git.matvore@google.com/ and promised to filter trees away, and its latest version can be found at https://public-inbox.org/git/cover.1536081438.git.matvore@google.com/

Thanks, Stefan

On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 10:15 AM, Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> wrote:

I mentioned this in an email to the original poster in which I forgot to also CC the mailing list:

By "without any objects" in your email subject, do you mean "without blob and tree objects"? If yes, there is some code in the md/filter-trees branch that can do that with a "--filter=tree:0" option. As far as I know, it is not yet in any released version of Git, but hopefully will be in the next one (the "What's Cooking" [1] email mentions that it will be merged to the "next" branch, which is one of the steps before it is released).

[1] https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqqmusw6gbo.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/

Jonathan Tan <jonathantanmy@google.com> writes:

I too was wondering what the "without any objects" thing meant myself.

What would it take on top of the following sequence to create such an ultra-lazy clone?

	$ mkdir very-sparse && cd very-sparse
	$ git init
	$ git remote add origin $URL

At this point, the repository does not have any object, but it already knows whom to talk to to get the objects in the project. The remote must be configured so that it is willing to feed you any object you name, but would it be just some "git config" magic after the above three steps to make it as if it was prepared with "git clone --filter="? If so, what does that magic look like?

Thanks.

On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 6:47 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Thanks for all replies, as you correctly deduced, I meant "without fetching any objects".

The mentioned --filter=tree:0 would basically do what I want it seems, good to hear!. I wonder why not call it tree:none though to match blob:none.

Yes, this would be a good CLI API since the since the clone --no-checkout --filter --filter gets a bit long.

Or maybe:

git clone --lazy URL repo_local cd repo_local git checkout commit -- path/within/repo

Or maybe even:

git clene --lazy URL repo_local COMMITISH path/within/repo

to do both in one go.

People are also interested in commit-less directory / file "clones"
BTW: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2466735/how-to-checkout-only-one-file-from-git-repository-sparse-checkout

On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 11:30 AM Ciro Santilli <ciro.santilli@gmail.com> wrote:

There are some plans of making tree: accept positive integers in order to filter out files greater than that depth. e.g. tree:1 would fetch all blobs and tree objects directly contained by the tree. tree:2 would fetch every object tree:1 does plus anything referred to directly by those objects.