I have a big repository which currently contains multiple projects in top level subfolders, say /a
, /b
, /c
, and /d
.
Now I want to split up that repository into two different repositories: one containing /a
and /b
and the other containing /c
and /d
.
I am aware of git filter-branch --subdirectory-filter
, which is perfect for extracting a single directory, but it seems not to be able to extract multiple directories at once.
I am also aware of git filter-branch --prune-empty --tree-filter
, which would allow me to delete everything, but the two wanted directories. This feels not completely right, as I have to manually specify all toplevel directories that might exist.
Is there a better way to extract two directories out of a big repository?
PS: Of course any good solution using something other than git filter-branch
is fine. ;)
Use
git filter-branch -f --prune-empty --tree-filter 'bash preserve-only.sh a b' -- --all
where preserve-only.sh
is:
IFS=':'
GLOBIGNORE="$*"
rm -rf *
This should remove everything but a
and b
from all commits of all branches, which should be the same as extracting exactly the given directories.
To complete the actual split you can use a filter like rm -rf a b
to get all the changes not extracted in the first run.
Update: While trying to speed things up using --index-filter
I came to an even easier solution:
git filter-branch -f --prune-empty --index-filter \
'git rm --cached -r -q -- . ; git reset -q $GIT_COMMIT -- a b' -- --all
This just removes everything and afterwards restores the given directories afterwards.
I'm not aware of any better way than tree-filter
for this. So you already have all the information you need. Now just do it!
Start by creating your two branches:
git branch br1
git branch br2
Now for each branch, check it out, then filter it using the tree-filter
.
You could then split them out to separate directories either by pushing them out, or by cloning or pulling them in.
I prefer this
git filter-branch -f --prune-empty --tree-filter "ls -I a -I b | xargs rm -rf" -- --all