is it possible not to have extra subdirectory when using Git - submodule - sparse-checkout?

Question

I want to mimic behavior like svn:externals: I have a master project and I have some "common" code in another repository. With SVN I would do:

svn co <url>/src common

and my folder structure would be:

repo/common/*.cpp

Now with git + submodule + sparse checkout this is a lot more complicated and I have an extra subdirectory layer when I add the submodule;

git submodule add <url> common

now my folder structure is:

repo/common/src/*.cpp
repo/common/lib/...

with sparse checkout I can make sure only to checkout the src folder, but than I still have one more layer (src) compared to the svn:externals solution:

repo/common/src/*.cpp

is there a better solution for common code? Or a way to clean this up? I know that everything will be working; it's just not so clean...

Answer 1

You cannot avoid the extra folder from the submodule, but you can add a symbolic link (even on Windows) in order to find the content you want.

Add your submodule with its repo name:

git submodule add -b master /url/of/repo

Add a symlink:

ln -s repo/src common

Don't forget to add the '-b master' if you want your repo to follow its master branch.
This is possible since git 1.8.2: see "git submodule tracking latest".

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Even the Git 2.25 and its git sparse-checkout command would not avoid the extra folder level "common".