Re: tracking a file from another project in my own project

[Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>]

picca <picca@synchrotron-soleil.Fr> writes:

> On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:20:41 -0800
> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> 
> > If I were you I'd probably just keep git.git as a submodule in
> > your project and have two symlinks from your toplevel pointing
> > at git.git/strbuf.[ch] (or from src/ to ../git.git/strbuf.[ch]).
> 
> So submodule is a requirement to achieved this comportment ?

If you want to have strbuf.[ch] automatically tracked from git.git
the you would have to have git.git project somehow embedded in your
repository.  Using submodules is one solution.

Currently there is no way to do "sparse checkout", i.e. automatically
checkout only needed files (even if git.git clone has all the
objects), but feel free to implement it... ;-) (just kidding).

Or you can try to convince strbuf authors to make it into separate
project, which would be fetched into git.git like gitk was.  And you
could then pull from this project directly or indirectly (submodule)
into your project.
  
> If someone want to clone my project.git, must he also clone the
> git.git project or he loose the ability to follow by it's own the
> strbuf.[ch] file ?

True.

> > Or "merge -s subtree".
> 
> I read the git help merge -s explanation but I do not understand how
> it can help in my case.

Using subtree merge strategy you can join histories of your project
and git.git, embedding git.git as a subdirectory like gitk and git-gui
are now in git.git.  It is an alternative to using submodules.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git