Re: Is it possible to git clone --filter= without any objects?

[Ciro Santilli <ciro.santilli@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 6:47 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Jonathan Tan <jonathantanmy@google.com> writes:
>
> > By "without any objects" in your email subject, do you mean "without
> > blob and tree objects"? If yes, there is some code in the
> > md/filter-trees branch that can do that with a "--filter=tree:0"
> > option.
>
> I too was wondering what the "without any objects" thing meant
> myself.
>

Thanks for all replies, as you correctly deduced, I meant "without
fetching any objects".

The mentioned --filter=tree:0 would basically do what I want it seems,
good to hear!. I wonder why not call it tree:none though to match
blob:none.

> What would it take on top of the following sequence to create such
> an ultra-lazy clone?
>
>         $ mkdir very-sparse && cd very-sparse
>         $ git init
>         $ git remote add origin $URL
>

Yes, this would be a good CLI API since the since the clone
--no-checkout --filter --filter gets a bit long.

Or maybe:

git clone --lazy URL repo_local
cd repo_local
git checkout commit -- path/within/repo

Or maybe even:

git clene --lazy URL repo_local COMMITISH path/within/repo

to do both in one go.

People are also interested in commit-less directory / file "clones"
BTW: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2466735/how-to-checkout-only-one-file-from-git-repository-sparse-checkout

> At this point, the repository does not have any object, but it
> already knows whom to talk to to get the objects in the project.
> The remote must be configured so that it is willing to feed you any
> object you name, but would it be just some "git config" magic after
> the above three steps to make it as if it was prepared with "git
> clone --filter="?  If so, what does that magic look like?
>
> Thanks.