New git repository in root directory to subsume an exist repository in a sub-directory

Question

I am working on a large code base that is not currently under any revision control (yes, really). I have been working on one component in a deep directory and created a covert git repository to track my changes. I now want to add all the code to source control and make a repository for the whole directory tree. I want the new, outer repository to include all the history for the files in the inner repository. I do not want separate projects or submodules; I want to be as if the repository had been created in the root of the code tree from the start and the inner repository never existed. I want to delete the .git directory in the sub-directory but would prefer not to lose the revision history that it contains.

Everything I have read on the topic is about merging existing repositories and that is not the case here or about maintaining submodules or remote projects, which I don't want.

Thank you.

let me see if I can whip up a filter-branch command for that … just give me a minute — knittl, Aug 25 '11 at 16:15

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 25 '11 at 16:24

1

Let's say your component is in /project-root/deep/path/to/component. The following commands will do what you want:

cd /project-root/deep/path/to/component
git filter-branch --tree-filter 'mkdir -p deep/path/to/component; git mv file1 file2 file2 deep/path/to/component' HEAD
rm -rf deep
mv .git /project-root
git reset --hard

Then of course you have to add the files for the rest of the project just as normal.

answered Aug 25 '11 at 16:24

Karl Bielefeldt

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This has done exactly and precisely what I needed. Thank you. – Anthony Aug 26 '11 at 15:40

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 25 '11 at 16:42

You could use filter-branch and move existing files in the current history into the subdirectory where they would be had the repository existed at project root from the beginning on:

git filter-branch \
--tree-filter '
>/dev/null mkdir -p path/from/project/root/to/current/;
mv * path/from/project/root/to/current/;
# take care of special files, e.g. .gitignore and other hidden files
mv .gitignore path/from/project/root/to/current/;
'
--tag-filter cat \
--all

After this is finished, verify the resulting history. If everything is dandy, move the .git directory into your project root; you should not see any unstaged files.

I'm pretty sure there is a computationally cheaper way, using --index-filter and git's plumbing commands, but I don't know them by heart.

This will rewrite history, so don't use this method if your repository was shared between several developers.

New git repository in root directory to subsume an exist repository in a sub-directory

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