1GIT-SPARSE-CHECKOU(1) Git Manual GIT-SPARSE-CHECKOU(1)
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6 git-sparse-checkout - Reduce your working tree to a subset of tracked
7 files
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10 git sparse-checkout <subcommand> [<options>]
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13 This command is used to create sparse checkouts, which means that it
14 changes the working tree from having all tracked files present, to only
15 have a subset of them. It can also switch which subset of files are
16 present, or undo and go back to having all tracked files present in the
17 working copy.
18 The subset of files is chosen by providing a list of directories in
20 cone mode (which is recommended), or by providing a list of patterns in
21 non-cone mode.
22 When in a sparse-checkout, other Git commands behave a bit differently.
24 For example, switching branches will not update paths outside the
25 sparse-checkout directories/patterns, and git commit -a will not record
26 paths outside the sparse-checkout directories/patterns as deleted.
27 THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER
29 COMMANDS IN THE PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE
30 FUTURE.
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33 list
34 Describe the directories or patterns in the sparse-checkout file.
35 set
37 Enable the necessary sparse-checkout config settings
38 (core.sparseCheckout, core.sparseCheckoutCone, and index.sparse) if
39 they are not already set to the desired values, and write a set of
40 patterns to the sparse-checkout file from the list of arguments
41 following the set subcommand. Update the working directory to match
42 the new patterns.
43 To ensure that adjusting the sparse-checkout settings within a
45 worktree does not alter the sparse-checkout settings in other
46 worktrees, the set subcommand will upgrade your repository config
47 to use worktree-specific config if not already present. The
48 sparsity defined by the arguments to the set subcommand are stored
49 in the worktree-specific sparse-checkout file. See git-worktree(1)
50 and the documentation of extensions.worktreeConfig in git-config(1)
51 for more details.
52 When the --stdin option is provided, the directories or patterns
54 are read from standard in as a newline-delimited list instead of
55 from the arguments.
56 When --cone is passed or core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled, the
58 input list is considered a list of directories. This allows for
59 better performance with a limited set of patterns (see CONE PATTERN
60 SET below). The input format matches the output of git ls-tree
61 --name-only. This includes interpreting pathnames that begin with a
62 double quote (") as C-style quoted strings. Note that the set
63 command will write patterns to the sparse-checkout file to include
64 all files contained in those directories (recursively) as well as
65 files that are siblings of ancestor directories. This may become
66 the default in the future; --no-cone can be passed to request
67 non-cone mode.
68 When --no-cone is passed or core.sparseCheckoutCone is not enabled,
70 the input list is considered a list of patterns. This mode is
71 harder to use and less performant, and is thus not recommended. See
72 the "Sparse Checkout" section of git-read-tree(1) and the "Pattern
73 Set" sections below for more details.
74 Use the --[no-]sparse-index option to use a sparse index (the
76 default is to not use it). A sparse index reduces the size of the
77 index to be more closely aligned with your sparse-checkout
78 definition. This can have significant performance advantages for
79 commands such as git status or git add. This feature is still
80 experimental. Some commands might be slower with a sparse index
81 until they are properly integrated with the feature.
82 WARNING: Using a sparse index requires modifying the index in a way
84 that is not completely understood by external tools. If you have
85 trouble with this compatibility, then run git sparse-checkout init
86 --no-sparse-index to rewrite your index to not be sparse. Older
87 versions of Git will not understand the sparse directory entries
88 index extension and may fail to interact with your repository until
89 it is disabled.
90 add
92 Update the sparse-checkout file to include additional directories
93 (in cone mode) or patterns (in non-cone mode). By default, these
94 directories or patterns are read from the command-line arguments,
95 but they can be read from stdin using the --stdin option.
96 reapply
98 Reapply the sparsity pattern rules to paths in the working tree.
99 Commands like merge or rebase can materialize paths to do their
100 work (e.g. in order to show you a conflict), and other
101 sparse-checkout commands might fail to sparsify an individual file
102 (e.g. because it has unstaged changes or conflicts). In such cases,
103 it can make sense to run git sparse-checkout reapply later after
104 cleaning up affected paths (e.g. resolving conflicts, undoing or
105 committing changes, etc.).
106 The reapply command can also take --[no-]cone and
108 --[no-]sparse-index flags, with the same meaning as the flags from
109 the set command, in order to change which sparsity mode you are
110 using without needing to also respecify all sparsity paths.
111 disable
113 Disable the core.sparseCheckout config setting, and restore the
114 working directory to include all files.
115 init
117 Deprecated command that behaves like set with no specified paths.
118 May be removed in the future.
119 Historically, set did not handle all the necessary config settings,
121 which meant that both init and set had to be called. Invoking both
122 meant the init step would first remove nearly all tracked files
123 (and in cone mode, ignored files too), then the set step would add
124 many of the tracked files (but not ignored files) back. In addition
125 to the lost files, the performance and UI of this combination was
126 poor.
127 Also, historically, init would not actually initialize the
129 sparse-checkout file if it already existed. This meant it was
130 possible to return to a sparse-checkout without remembering which
131 paths to pass to a subsequent set or add command. However, --cone
132 and --sparse-index options would not be remembered across the
133 disable command, so the easy restore of calling a plain init
134 decreased in utility.
135
137 "Sparse checkout" allows populating the working directory sparsely. It
138 uses the skip-worktree bit (see git-update-index(1)) to tell Git
139 whether a file in the working directory is worth looking at. If the
140 skip-worktree bit is set, and the file is not present in the working
141 tree, then its absence is ignored. Git will avoid populating the
142 contents of those files, which makes a sparse checkout helpful when
143 working in a repository with many files, but only a few are important
144 to the current user.
145 The $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout file is used to define the
147 skip-worktree reference bitmap. When Git updates the working directory,
148 it updates the skip-worktree bits in the index based on this file. The
149 files matching the patterns in the file will appear in the working
150 directory, and the rest will not.
151 To enable the sparse-checkout feature, run git sparse-checkout set to
153 set the patterns you want to use.
154 To repopulate the working directory with all files, use the git
156 sparse-checkout disable command.
157
159 By default, the sparse-checkout file uses the same syntax as .gitignore
160 files.
161 While $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout is usually used to specify what
163 files are included, you can also specify what files are not included,
164 using negative patterns. For example, to remove the file unwanted:
165 /*
167 !unwanted
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170 The full pattern set allows for arbitrary pattern matches and
171 complicated inclusion/exclusion rules. These can result in O(N*M)
172 pattern matches when updating the index, where N is the number of
173 patterns and M is the number of paths in the index. To combat this
174 performance issue, a more restricted pattern set is allowed when
175 core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled.
176 The accepted patterns in the cone pattern set are:
178 1. Recursive: All paths inside a directory are included.
180 2. Parent: All files immediately inside a directory are included.
182 In addition to the above two patterns, we also expect that all files in
184 the root directory are included. If a recursive pattern is added, then
185 all leading directories are added as parent patterns.
186 By default, when running git sparse-checkout init, the root directory
188 is added as a parent pattern. At this point, the sparse-checkout file
189 contains the following patterns:
190 /*
192 !/*/
193 This says "include everything in root, but nothing two levels below
195 root."
196 When in cone mode, the git sparse-checkout set subcommand takes a list
198 of directories instead of a list of sparse-checkout patterns. In this
199 mode, the command git sparse-checkout set A/B/C sets the directory
200 A/B/C as a recursive pattern, the directories A and A/B are added as
201 parent patterns. The resulting sparse-checkout file is now
202 /*
204 !/*/
205 /A/
206 !/A/*/
207 /A/B/
208 !/A/B/*/
209 /A/B/C/
210 Here, order matters, so the negative patterns are overridden by the
212 positive patterns that appear lower in the file.
213 If core.sparseCheckoutCone=true, then Git will parse the
215 sparse-checkout file expecting patterns of these types. Git will warn
216 if the patterns do not match. If the patterns do match the expected
217 format, then Git will use faster hash- based algorithms to compute
218 inclusion in the sparse-checkout.
219 In the cone mode case, the git sparse-checkout list subcommand will
221 list the directories that define the recursive patterns. For the
222 example sparse-checkout file above, the output is as follows:
223 $ git sparse-checkout list
225 A/B/C
226 If core.ignoreCase=true, then the pattern-matching algorithm will use a
228 case-insensitive check. This corrects for case mismatched filenames in
229 the git sparse-checkout set command to reflect the expected cone in the
230 working directory.
231 When changing the sparse-checkout patterns in cone mode, Git will
233 inspect each tracked directory that is not within the sparse-checkout
234 cone to see if it contains any untracked files. If all of those files
235 are ignored due to the .gitignore patterns, then the directory will be
236 deleted. If any of the untracked files within that directory is not
237 ignored, then no deletions will occur within that directory and a
238 warning message will appear. If these files are important, then reset
239 your sparse-checkout definition so they are included, use git add and
240 git commit to store them, then remove any remaining files manually to
241 ensure Git can behave optimally.
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244 If your repository contains one or more submodules, then submodules are
245 populated based on interactions with the git submodule command.
246 Specifically, git submodule init -- <path> will ensure the submodule at
247 <path> is present, while git submodule deinit [-f] -- <path> will
248 remove the files for the submodule at <path> (including any untracked
249 files, uncommitted changes, and unpushed history). Similar to how
250 sparse-checkout removes files from the working tree but still leaves
251 entries in the index, deinitialized submodules are removed from the
252 working directory but still have an entry in the index.
253 Since submodules may have unpushed changes or untracked files, removing
255 them could result in data loss. Thus, changing sparse
256 inclusion/exclusion rules will not cause an already checked out
257 submodule to be removed from the working copy. Said another way, just
258 as checkout will not cause submodules to be automatically removed or
259 initialized even when switching between branches that remove or add
260 submodules, using sparse-checkout to reduce or expand the scope of
261 "interesting" files will not cause submodules to be automatically
262 deinitialized or initialized either.
263 Further, the above facts mean that there are multiple reasons that
265 "tracked" files might not be present in the working copy: sparsity
266 pattern application from sparse-checkout, and submodule initialization
267 state. Thus, commands like git grep that work on tracked files in the
268 working copy may return results that are limited by either or both of
269 these restrictions.
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272 git-read-tree(1) gitignore(5)
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275 Part of the git(1) suite
276Git 2.36.1 2022-05-05 GIT-SPARSE-CHECKOU(1)