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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | SPARSE CHECKOUT | FULL PATTERN SET | CONE PATTERN SET | SUBMODULES | SEE ALSO | GIT | COLOPHON |
GIT-SPARSE-CHECKOU(1) Git Manual GIT-SPARSE-CHECKOU(1)
git-sparse-checkout - Initialize and modify the sparse-checkout
configuration, which reduces the checkout to a set of paths given by
a list of patterns.
git sparse-checkout <subcommand> [options]
Initialize and modify the sparse-checkout configuration, which
reduces the checkout to a set of paths given by a list of patterns.
THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER
COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN
THE FUTURE.
list
Describe the patterns in the sparse-checkout file.
init
Enable the core.sparseCheckout setting. If the sparse-checkout
file does not exist, then populate it with patterns that match
every file in the root directory and no other directories, then
will remove all directories tracked by Git. Add patterns to the
sparse-checkout file to repopulate the working directory.
To avoid interfering with other worktrees, it first enables the
extensions.worktreeConfig setting and makes sure to set the
core.sparseCheckout setting in the worktree-specific config file.
When --cone is provided, the core.sparseCheckoutCone setting is
also set, allowing for better performance with a limited set of
patterns (see CONE PATTERN SET below).
set
Write a set of patterns to the sparse-checkout file, as given as
a list of arguments following the set subcommand. Update the
working directory to match the new patterns. Enable the
core.sparseCheckout config setting if it is not already enabled.
When the --stdin option is provided, the patterns are read from
standard in as a newline-delimited list instead of from the
arguments.
When core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled, the input list is
considered a list of directories instead of sparse-checkout
patterns. The command writes patterns to the sparse-checkout file
to include all files contained in those directories (recursively)
as well as files that are siblings of ancestor directories. The
input format matches the output of git ls-tree --name-only. This
includes interpreting pathnames that begin with a double quote
(") as C-style quoted strings.
add
Update the sparse-checkout file to include additional patterns.
By default, these patterns are read from the command-line
arguments, but they can be read from stdin using the --stdin
option. When core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled, the given
patterns are interpreted as directory names as in the set
subcommand.
reapply
Reapply the sparsity pattern rules to paths in the working tree.
Commands like merge or rebase can materialize paths to do their
work (e.g. in order to show you a conflict), and other
sparse-checkout commands might fail to sparsify an individual
file (e.g. because it has unstaged changes or conflicts). In such
cases, it can make sense to run git sparse-checkout reapply later
after cleaning up affected paths (e.g. resolving conflicts,
undoing or committing changes, etc.).
disable
Disable the core.sparseCheckout config setting, and restore the
working directory to include all files. Leaves the
sparse-checkout file intact so a later git sparse-checkout init
command may return the working directory to the same state.
"Sparse checkout" allows populating the working directory sparsely.
It uses the skip-worktree bit (see git-update-index(1)) to tell Git
whether a file in the working directory is worth looking at. If the
skip-worktree bit is set, then the file is ignored in the working
directory. Git will not populate the contents of those files, which
makes a sparse checkout helpful when working in a repository with
many files, but only a few are important to the current user.
The $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout file is used to define the
skip-worktree reference bitmap. When Git updates the working
directory, it updates the skip-worktree bits in the index based on
this file. The files matching the patterns in the file will appear in
the working directory, and the rest will not.
To enable the sparse-checkout feature, run git sparse-checkout init
to initialize a simple sparse-checkout file and enable the
core.sparseCheckout config setting. Then, run git sparse-checkout set
to modify the patterns in the sparse-checkout file.
To repopulate the working directory with all files, use the git
sparse-checkout disable command.
By default, the sparse-checkout file uses the same syntax as
.gitignore files.
While $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout is usually used to specify what
files are included, you can also specify what files are not included,
using negative patterns. For example, to remove the file unwanted:
/*
!unwanted
The full pattern set allows for arbitrary pattern matches and
complicated inclusion/exclusion rules. These can result in O(N*M)
pattern matches when updating the index, where N is the number of
patterns and M is the number of paths in the index. To combat this
performance issue, a more restricted pattern set is allowed when
core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled.
The accepted patterns in the cone pattern set are:
1. Recursive: All paths inside a directory are included.
2. Parent: All files immediately inside a directory are included.
In addition to the above two patterns, we also expect that all files
in the root directory are included. If a recursive pattern is added,
then all leading directories are added as parent patterns.
By default, when running git sparse-checkout init, the root directory
is added as a parent pattern. At this point, the sparse-checkout file
contains the following patterns:
/*
!/*/
This says "include everything in root, but nothing two levels below
root."
When in cone mode, the git sparse-checkout set subcommand takes a
list of directories instead of a list of sparse-checkout patterns. In
this mode, the command git sparse-checkout set A/B/C sets the
directory A/B/C as a recursive pattern, the directories A and A/B are
added as parent patterns. The resulting sparse-checkout file is now
/*
!/*/
/A/
!/A/*/
/A/B/
!/A/B/*/
/A/B/C/
Here, order matters, so the negative patterns are overridden by the
positive patterns that appear lower in the file.
If core.sparseCheckoutCone=true, then Git will parse the
sparse-checkout file expecting patterns of these types. Git will warn
if the patterns do not match. If the patterns do match the expected
format, then Git will use faster hash- based algorithms to compute
inclusion in the sparse-checkout.
In the cone mode case, the git sparse-checkout list subcommand will
list the directories that define the recursive patterns. For the
example sparse-checkout file above, the output is as follows:
$ git sparse-checkout list
A/B/C
If core.ignoreCase=true, then the pattern-matching algorithm will use
a case-insensitive check. This corrects for case mismatched filenames
in the git sparse-checkout set command to reflect the expected cone
in the working directory.
If your repository contains one or more submodules, then submodules
are populated based on interactions with the git submodule command.
Specifically, git submodule init -- <path> will ensure the submodule
at <path> is present, while git submodule deinit [-f] -- <path> will
remove the files for the submodule at <path> (including any untracked
files, uncommitted changes, and unpushed history). Similar to how
sparse-checkout removes files from the working tree but still leaves
entries in the index, deinitialized submodules are removed from the
working directory but still have an entry in the index.
Since submodules may have unpushed changes or untracked files,
removing them could result in data loss. Thus, changing sparse
inclusion/exclusion rules will not cause an already checked out
submodule to be removed from the working copy. Said another way, just
as checkout will not cause submodules to be automatically removed or
initialized even when switching between branches that remove or add
submodules, using sparse-checkout to reduce or expand the scope of
"interesting" files will not cause submodules to be automatically
deinitialized or initialized either.
Further, the above facts mean that there are multiple reasons that
"tracked" files might not be present in the working copy: sparsity
pattern application from sparse-checkout, and submodule
initialization state. Thus, commands like git grep that work on
tracked files in the working copy may return results that are limited
by either or both of these restrictions.
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Git 2.28.0.202.g7814e8 08/12/2020 GIT-SPARSE-CHECKOU(1)
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