Easiest way to clone over an existing directory?

Easiest way to clone over an existing directory?

[Josh Triplett]

Currently, every time I set up a new system, I run the following:

git clone $MY_HOMEDIR
mv home/.git .
rm -r home
git checkout -f

This seems like an odd dance to go through.  But I can't just git clone
into ~ directly, because git clone will not clone into an existing
non-empty directory.

(I could use "git clone -n" to avoid the unnecessary checkout, but the
files are small, and it wouldn't remove the need to rmdir so the number
of commands would remain the same.)

Does some better way exist to handle this?  And if not, would it make
sense for git clone to have an option to clone into an existing
directory (which should also avoid setting junk_work_tree)?

Re: Easiest way to clone over an existing directory?

[brian m. carlson]

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On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 08:51:34AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> Currently, every time I set up a new system, I run the following:
> 
> git clone $MY_HOMEDIR
> mv home/.git .
> rm -r home
> git checkout -f
> 
> This seems like an odd dance to go through.  But I can't just git clone
> into ~ directly, because git clone will not clone into an existing
> non-empty directory.
> 
> (I could use "git clone -n" to avoid the unnecessary checkout, but the
> files are small, and it wouldn't remove the need to rmdir so the number
> of commands would remain the same.)
> 
> Does some better way exist to handle this?  And if not, would it make
> sense for git clone to have an option to clone into an existing
> directory (which should also avoid setting junk_work_tree)?

My typical technique is something like the following:

  git init
  git remote add origin https://git.crustytoothpaste.net/git/bmc/homedir.git
  git pull origin master

I'm not sure if that's the officially sanctioned way to do it, but it
does work reliably.
-- 
brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US
+1 832 623 2791 | https://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

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