New repo with copied history of only currently tracked files

by

Delete everything and restore what you want

Rather than delete this-list-of-files one at a time, do the almost-opposite: delete everything and just restore the files you want to keep.

Like so:

# for unix

$ git checkout master
$ git ls-files > keep-these.txt
$ git filter-branch --force --index-filter \
  "git rm  --ignore-unmatch --cached -qr . ; \
  cat $PWD/keep-these.txt | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -d '\0' git reset -q \$GIT_COMMIT --" \
  --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

# for macOS

$ git checkout master
$ git ls-files > keep-these.txt
$ git filter-branch --force --index-filter \
  "git rm  --ignore-unmatch --cached -qr . ; \
  cat $PWD/keep-these.txt | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 git reset -q \$GIT_COMMIT --" \
  --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

It may be faster to execute.

Cleanup steps

Once the whole process has finished, then cleanup:

$ rm -rf .git/refs/original/
$ git reflog expire --expire=now --all
$ git gc --prune=now

# optional extra gc. Slow and may not further-reduce the repo size
$ git gc --aggressive --prune=now

Comparing the repository size before and after, should indicate a sizable
reduction, and of course only commits that touch the kept files, plus merge
commits – even if empty (because that’s how –prune-empty works), will be in the history.

$GIT_COMMIT?

The use of $GIT_COMMIT seems to have caused some confusion, from the git filter-branch documentation (emphasis added):

The argument is always evaluated in the shell context using the eval command (with the notable exception of the commit filter, for technical reasons). Prior to that, the $GIT_COMMIT environment variable will be set to contain the id of the commit being rewritten.

That means git filter-branch will provide the variable at run time, it’s not provided by you before hand. This can be demonstrated if there’s any doubt using this no-op filter branch command:

$ git filter-branch --index-filter "echo current commit is \$GIT_COMMIT"
Rewrite d832800a85be9ef4ee6fda2fe4b3b6715c8bb860 (1/xxxxx)current commit is d832800a85be9ef4ee6fda2fe4b3b6715c8bb860
Rewrite cd86555549ac17aeaa28abecaf450b49ce5ae663 (2/xxxxx)current commit is cd86555549ac17aeaa28abecaf450b49ce5ae663
...

More Related Contents:

  1. How do I push amended commit to the remote Git repository?
  2. How to find a deleted file in the project commit history?
  3. How to remove file from Git history?
  4. What’s the purpose of git-mv?
  5. master branch and ‘origin/master’ have diverged, how to ‘undiverge’ branches’?
  6. Remove specific commit
  7. How to make git mark a deleted and a new file as a file move?
  8. How do I reset or revert a file to a specific revision?
  9. Git interoperability with a Mercurial Repository
  10. Show git ahead and behind info for all branches, including remotes
  11. There is no tracking information for the current branch
  12. How to tell which commit a tag points to in Git?
  13. How do I change the default location for Git Bash on Windows?
  14. git – merge conflict when local is deleted but file exists in remote
  15. How to replace local branch with remote branch entirely in Git?
  16. How do I avoid the specification of the username and password at every git push?
  17. What to do with commit made in a detached head
  18. Cannot push to Git repository on Bitbucket
  19. How to get a list of all files that changed between two Git commits?
  20. Recursively add files by pattern
  21. Git push error: “origin does not appear to be a git repository”
  22. Jenkins and Git sparse checkouts
  23. How to fix commit order in GitHub pull requests, broken by git rebase?
  24. Git Diff of same files in two directories always result in “renamed”
  25. Completely cancel a rebase
  26. How to permanently delete a file stored in GIT? [duplicate]
  27. Switch branch names in git
  28. How to sync with a remote Git repository?
  29. git reset asks ‘more?’
  30. Setting up sublimetext 3 as git commit text editor

Leave a Comment