merging the changes from two repositories in github

Question

I have a git repo for a project. Since there were some issues in the codebase and it was hard to identify and fix, to meet the deadline I create a new project on my local machine and started to re develop the entire application. After developing, I ran the git init command and then ran the git remote add origin <path to the original repo>.

When I try to push the changes, git did not allow me to push the changes and the message I got was you need to at least perform a single commit. I somehow had to secure my changes and created another temporary repo on the serve and finally pushed my changes to the new repo.

I need to move my new repo changes to my original repo and preferably on a new branch. How can I get this done? Please let me know the steps to get this done.

Did you commit your work before trying to push the changes? There may be multiple problems going on here. — Tim Biegeleisen, Dec 17 '15 at 07:14
I have committed the changes to the local repository before pushing the changes. — zilcuanu, Dec 17 '15 at 07:16

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

3

This is not a problem for git. Check out the answer here. For you, this would be:

cd <<original_repo>>
git remote add new_repo <<url_to_new_repo>>
git fetch new_repo
git push origin refs/remotes/new_repo/master:refs/heads/new_repo_master

This will create a new branch in origin called new_repo_master that contains the commits from the master branch in your new repository.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Community

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answered Dec 17 '15 at 10:32

houtanb

3,852
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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 05 '16 at 10:02

There are available two possible solutions,

Submodules

Either copy repository A into separate directory in larger project B, or (perhaps better) clone repository A into subdirectory in project B. Then use git submodule to make this repository a submodule of a repository B.

This is a good solution for loosely-coupled repositories, where development in repository A continues, and major portion of development is separate stand-alone development in A. See also SubmoduleSupport and GitSubmoduleTutorial pages on Git Wiki.

Subtree merge

You can merge repository A into a subdirectory of a project B using the subtree merge strategy. This is described in Subtree Merging and You by Markus Prinz.

git remote add -f Bproject /path/to/B
git merge -s ours --no-commit Bproject/master
git read-tree --prefix=dir-B/ -u Bproject/master
git commit -m "Merge B project as our subdirectory"
git pull -s subtree Bproject master

Or you can use git subtree tool (repository on github) by apenwarr (Avery Pennarun), announced for example in his blog post A new alternative to git submodules: git subtree.

I think in your case (A is to be part of larger project B) the correct solution would be to use subtree merge

merging the changes from two repositories in github

2 Answers2

Submodules

Subtree merge