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I have a top level git repo organized like so:

  • .git/
  • repoA/
    • .git/
    • file
    • file2
    • folder/
    • ...
  • file
  • file2
  • folder/
  • ...

How can I get git to add and commit repoA (and repoA/.git) as if they were regular files/folders?

Specifically, I want to bypass the treatment of such a folder as a submodule but I want to retain the branches/history of the nested repo (so the .git folder is required).

I do not want to alter the state of the nested repo (by committing or merging histories) and do not want to push it to a separate repo on the remote.

The intended result is the same as if I were to tar repoA and un-tar it later. That is, all the files are intact with no modification or special treatment by git.

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2

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
11
+100

This is not directly possible. The .git directory has a special meaning for git. When you run git operations from inside a git work-tree (not necessarily from the top level) without explicitly specifying the path to the repository (via the --git-dir option or the GIT_DIR environment variable) the latter is automatically discovered by looking for the first ancestor directory that contains a .git subdirectory. A .git directory that is intended to be considered as regular content would interfere with that procedure.

However, I can suggest the following workaround:

  1. In your sub-repository, rename the .git directory to something else (e.g. .git.subrepo, .pseudogit, etc):
mv repoA/.git repoA/.pseudogit
  1. Add and commit the sub-repository directory:
git add repoA git commit -m "Added repoA as regular sub-directory"

After this git operations from inside the sub-repository tree will work using the master repository by default. When you need to study the history of the sub-repository you will have to use the --git-dir option:

cd repoA git --git-dir .pseudogit log
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1 Comment

Add can add a alias like this alias gitsub="git --git-dir .pseudogit", so you can do gitsub log, gitsub status commands without specicy the param.
5

You can look into git subtree.

For that, if you currently have submodules, you can follow "Convert a git repository from submodules to subtrees":

cat .gitmodules |while read i do if [[ $i == \[submodule* ]]; then mpath=$(echo $i | cut -d\" -f2) read i; read i; murl=$(echo $i|cut -d\ -f3) mcommit=`eval "git submodule status ${mpath} |cut -d\ -f2"` mname=$(basename $mpath) echo -e "$name\t$mpath\t$murl\t$mcommit" git submodule deinit $mpath git rm -r --cached $mpath rm -rf $mpath git remote add $mname $murl git fetch $mname git branch _$mname $mcommit git read-tree --prefix=$mpath/ -u _$mname fi done git rm .gitmodules

(test it on a copy of your repo first)

See also "When to use git subtree?", which differs from ingydotnet/git-subrepo.

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5 Comments

Your first link is now this: atlassian.com/git/tutorials/git-subtree. It auto-forwards so no big deal. Looks like a pretty good article. I'm reading it now.
Related: stackoverflow.com/questions/32407634/when-to-use-git-subtree
And yet another option: github.com/ingydotnet/git-subrepo
@GabrielStaples Thank you . I have updated the answer accordingly.
Glad to help. I just wrote this git disable-repos tool over the weekend too to archive a bunch of old projects (into a single parent repo) which need fixing up and reviving at a later date: stackoverflow.com/a/62368415/4561887. Perhaps your or someone else will find it useful as well.

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