How do you clone a Git repository into a specific

Question

Executing the command git clone [e-mail]:whatever creates a directory in my current folder named whatever, and drops the contents of the Git repository into that folder:

/httpdocs/whatever/public

My problem is that I need the contents of the Git repository cloned into my current directory so that they appear in the proper location for the web server:

/httpdocs/public

I know how to move the files after I've cloned the repository, but this seems to break Git, and I'd like to be able to update just by calling git pull. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Go into the folder.. If the folder is empty, then:

git clone [e-mail]:whatever .

else

git init
git remote add origin PATH/TO/REPO
git fetch
git checkout -t origin/master

Answer 2

Let's say you want in a folder like /stuff, but your pull is creating a directory under /repo/tokens/.

You can do:

mkdir /stuff
ln -s /repo/tokens /stuff

That's it. You are done.

Answer 3

The example I think a lot of people asking this question are after is this. If you are in the directory you want the contents of the git repository dumped to, run:

git clone [e-mail]:whatever .

The "." at the end specifies the current folder as the checkout folder.

Answer 4

Clone:

git clone [e-mail]:jittre/name.git

Clone the "specific branch":

git clone -b [branch-name] [e-mail]:jittre/name.git

Answer 5

Here's how I would do it, but I have made an alias to do it for me.

$ cd ~Downloads/git; git clone https:git.foo/poo.git

There is probably a more elegant way of doing this, however I found this to be easiest for myself.

Here's the alias I created to speed things along. I made it for zsh, but it should work just fine for bash or any other shell like fish, xyzsh, fizsh, and so on.

Edit ~/.zshrc, /.bashrc, etc. with your favorite editor (mine is Leafpad, so I would write $ leafpad ~/.zshrc).

My personal preference, however, is to make a zsh plugin to keep track of all my aliases. You can create a personal plugin for oh-my-zsh by running these commands:

$ cd ~/.oh-my-zsh/
$ cd plugins/
$ mkdir your-aliases-folder-name; cd your-aliases-folder-name
     # In my case '~/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/ev-aliases/ev-aliases'
$ leafpad your-zsh-aliases.plugin.zsh
     # Again, in my case 'ev-aliases.plugin.zsh'

Afterwards, add these lines to your newly created blank alises.plugin file:

# Git aliases
alias gc="cd ~/Downloads/git; git clone "

(From here, replace your name with mine.)

Then, in order to get the aliases to work, they (along with zsh) have to be sourced-in (or whatever it's called). To do so, inside your custom plugin document add this:

## Ev's Aliases

#### Remember to re-source zsh after making any changes with these commands:

#### These commands should also work, assuming ev-aliases have already been sourced before:

allsource="source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh ; source /home/ev/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/ev-aliases/ev-aliases.plugin.zsh; clear"
sourceall="source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh ; source /home/ev/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/ev-aliases/ev-aliases.plugin.zsh"
#### 

####################################

# git aliases

alias gc="cd ~/Downloads/git; git clone "
# alias gc="git clone "
# alias gc="cd /your/git/folder/or/whatever; git clone "

####################################

Save your oh-my-zsh plugin, and run allsource. If that does not seem to work, simply run source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh; source /home/ev/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/ev-aliases/ev-aliases.plugin.zsh. That will load the plugin source which will allow you to use allsource from now on.

---

I'm in the process of making a Git repository with all of my aliases. Please feel free to check them out here: Ev's dot-files. Please feel free to fork and improve upon them to suit your needs.

Answer 6

Basic Git Repository Cloning

You clone a repository with

git clone [url]

For example, if you want to clone the Stanford University Drupal Open Framework Git library called open_framework, you can do so like this:

$ git clone git://github.com/SU-SWS/open_framework.git

That creates a directory named open_framework (at your current local file system location), initializes a .git directory inside it, pulls down all the data for that repository, and checks out a working copy of the latest version. If you go into the newly created open_framework directory, you’ll see the project files in there, ready to be worked on or used.

Cloning a Repository Into a Specific Local Folder

If you want to clone the repository into a directory named something other than open_framework, you can specify that as the next command-line option:

$ git clone git:github.com/SU-SWS/open_framework.git mynewtheme

That command does the same thing as the previous one, but the target directory is called mynewtheme.

Git has a number of different transfer protocols you can use. The previous example uses the git:// protocol, but you may also see http(s):// or user@server:/path.git, which uses the SSH transfer protocol.