Setup and Config
Getting and Creating Projects
Basic Snapshotting
Branching and Merging
Sharing and Updating Projects
Inspection and Comparison
Patching
Debugging
External Systems
Server Admin
Guides
- gitattributes
- Command-line interface conventions
- Everyday Git
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Glossary
- Hooks
- gitignore
- gitmodules
- Revisions
- Submodules
- Tutorial
- Workflows
- All guides...
Administration
Plumbing Commands
- 2.42.1 → 2.47.1 no changes
- 2.42.0 08/21/23
- 2.41.1 → 2.41.2 no changes
- 2.41.0 06/01/23
- 2.39.1 → 2.40.3 no changes
- 2.39.0 12/12/22
- 2.37.1 → 2.38.5 no changes
- 2.37.0 06/27/22
- 2.36.1 → 2.36.6 no changes
- 2.36.0 04/18/22
- 2.35.1 → 2.35.8 no changes
- 2.35.0 01/24/22
- 2.34.1 → 2.34.8 no changes
- 2.34.0 11/15/21
- 2.32.1 → 2.33.8 no changes
- 2.32.0 06/06/21
- 2.28.1 → 2.31.8 no changes
- 2.28.0 07/27/20
- 2.27.1 no changes
- 2.27.0 06/01/20
- 2.26.1 → 2.26.3 no changes
- 2.26.0 03/22/20
- 2.25.1 → 2.25.5 no changes
- 2.25.0 01/13/20
NAME
git-sparse-checkout - Initialize and modify the sparse-checkout configuration, which reduces the checkout to a set of paths given by a list of patterns.
DESCRIPTION
Initialize and modify the sparse-checkout configuration, which reduces the checkout to a set of paths given by a list of patterns.
THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE.
COMMANDS
- list
-
Describe the patterns in the sparse-checkout file.
- init
-
Enable the
core.sparseCheckout
setting. If the sparse-checkout file does not exist, then populate it with patterns that match every file in the root directory and no other directories, then will remove all directories tracked by Git. Add patterns to the sparse-checkout file to repopulate the working directory.To avoid interfering with other worktrees, it first enables the
extensions.worktreeConfig
setting and makes sure to set thecore.sparseCheckout
setting in the worktree-specific config file. - set
-
Write a set of patterns to the sparse-checkout file, as given as a list of arguments following the set subcommand. Update the working directory to match the new patterns. Enable the core.sparseCheckout config setting if it is not already enabled.
When the
--stdin
option is provided, the patterns are read from standard in as a newline-delimited list instead of from the arguments. - disable
-
Disable the
core.sparseCheckout
config setting, and restore the working directory to include all files. Leaves the sparse-checkout file intact so a later git sparse-checkout init command may return the working directory to the same state.
SPARSE CHECKOUT
"Sparse checkout" allows populating the working directory sparsely. It uses the skip-worktree bit (see git-update-index[1]) to tell Git whether a file in the working directory is worth looking at. If the skip-worktree bit is set, then the file is ignored in the working directory. Git will not populate the contents of those files, which makes a sparse checkout helpful when working in a repository with many files, but only a few are important to the current user.
The $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout
file is used to define the
skip-worktree reference bitmap. When Git updates the working
directory, it updates the skip-worktree bits in the index based
on this file. The files matching the patterns in the file will
appear in the working directory, and the rest will not.
To enable the sparse-checkout feature, run git sparse-checkout init
to
initialize a simple sparse-checkout file and enable the core.sparseCheckout
config setting. Then, run git sparse-checkout set
to modify the patterns in
the sparse-checkout file.
To repopulate the working directory with all files, use the
git sparse-checkout disable
command.
FULL PATTERN SET
By default, the sparse-checkout file uses the same syntax as .gitignore
files.
While $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout
is usually used to specify what
files are included, you can also specify what files are not included,
using negative patterns. For example, to remove the file unwanted
:
/* !unwanted
CONE PATTERN SET
The full pattern set allows for arbitrary pattern matches and complicated
inclusion/exclusion rules. These can result in O(N*M) pattern matches when
updating the index, where N is the number of patterns and M is the number
of paths in the index. To combat this performance issue, a more restricted
pattern set is allowed when core.spareCheckoutCone
is enabled.
The accepted patterns in the cone pattern set are:
-
Recursive: All paths inside a directory are included.
-
Parent: All files immediately inside a directory are included.
In addition to the above two patterns, we also expect that all files in the root directory are included. If a recursive pattern is added, then all leading directories are added as parent patterns.
By default, when running git sparse-checkout init
, the root directory is
added as a parent pattern. At this point, the sparse-checkout file contains
the following patterns:
/* !/*/
This says "include everything in root, but nothing two levels below root."
If we then add the folder A/B/C
as a recursive pattern, the folders A
and
A/B
are added as parent patterns. The resulting sparse-checkout file is
now
/* !/*/ /A/ !/A/*/ /A/B/ !/A/B/*/ /A/B/C/
Here, order matters, so the negative patterns are overridden by the positive patterns that appear lower in the file.
If core.sparseCheckoutCone=true
, then Git will parse the sparse-checkout file
expecting patterns of these types. Git will warn if the patterns do not match.
If the patterns do match the expected format, then Git will use faster hash-
based algorithms to compute inclusion in the sparse-checkout.
In the cone mode case, the git sparse-checkout list
subcommand will list the
directories that define the recursive patterns. For the example sparse-checkout
file above, the output is as follows:
$ git sparse-checkout list A/B/C
If core.ignoreCase=true
, then the pattern-matching algorithm will use a
case-insensitive check. This corrects for case mismatched filenames in the
git sparse-checkout set command to reflect the expected cone in the working
directory.
SUBMODULES
If your repository contains one or more submodules, then those submodules will
appear based on which you initialized with the git submodule
command. If
your sparse-checkout patterns exclude an initialized submodule, then that
submodule will still appear in your working directory.
GIT
Part of the git[1] suite