Create a new git repository from a existing local branch

Question

I have a Git repository with two branches: master and redesign. The redesign branch was created from master, and master has not been touched since then:

master
...|--m50--\
            \--m51--|--m52--|--m53-- redesign

The redesign branch has evolved so much that I would like to create a new whole repository from it, taking the first commit of redesign as the initial commit of the new repository and forgetting the previous history inherited from master:

master
...|--m50--

redesign
--r1--|--r2--|--r3--

Is this possible with Git? There is a related question to this, but its goal is to use a directory, not a branch.

Thanks!

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 27 '11 at 17:41

9

You could:

checkout the commit you want for the "root" of your new repo
copy all the files to your new directory (except the .git directory)
check out your redesign branch
git format-patch master..redesign
move all the generated patch files somewhere handy

Then go to your new directory and:

$ git init
$ git add .           # make sure your .gitignore is in place though
$ git commit -m"..."
$ git am /path/to/patches/*.patch

answered Nov 27 '11 at 17:41

Mat

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When executing `git am ...` several error messages like these appeared: `/Users/elitalon/Sites/exigo/.git/rebase-apply/patch:447: trailing whitespace` and `error: cake/console/cake.bat: patch does not apply`. What can be happening? – elitalon Nov 28 '11 at 16:39
Use a separate directory where you store *only* the patch files generated by `git format-patch`. What you are trying to apply there doesn't look like anything you should be applying. – Mat Nov 28 '11 at 16:47
Forget it. I used the flag `--whitespace=fix` and everything worked like a charm. Thank you! – elitalon Nov 28 '11 at 16:52

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '13 at 13:40

1

Create your new repository, then:

$ git add remote newrepo <path to newrepo>
$ git checkout redesign
$ git checkout --orphan clean
# The branch is empty, but the files from the original branch are staged for commit.
$ git commit -m"clean"
$ git push newrepo clean:master

Note: If you want to preserve history (or don't care), omit the creation of the "clean"

answered Jul 08 '13 at 13:40

Daniel

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This was a very simple, straightforward solution; one I hadn't thought of at all, and completely obvious in retrospect (like most simple clever things). Thank you (9 years later, no less). I would only add that, regarding the part about preserving history, this answer does not address the part in the original question about "starting from a specific commit", since the history-preserving variant of this approach will in fact copy all nodes from the very beginning. Nothing that squashing commits later via an interactive rebase can't fix though :) – Tasos Papastylianou Sep 10 '22 at 23:19

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 27 '11 at 17:44

First, copy or clone your git repository.

Then, find out the hash of your new root commit (m51 in your diagram). Put its commit hash into the file .git/info/grafts, then run git filter-branch --all. After you have verified the successful operation, you can remove the original/* backup refs (or re-clone the repository).

Please note that this will create new commit hashes for all commits, so you have to be careful with already published history.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 09 '22 at 11:53

My method is a bit different. I tested this on my Ubuntu Linux machine. The steps are:

Checkout branch / hash that you want to clone or create root repository
```
$ git checkout redesign
```
Make git archive for current branch by using command
```
$ git archive HEAD --format zip -o redesign-repository.zip
```
Above command will create a new file called redesign-repository.zip in current repository with zip format. We can also change HEAD to name / hash of commit, e.g. git archive redesign --format zip -o redesign-repository.zip
Create a new directory to extract the file to
```
$ mkdir ../redesign-repo
```

Extract the archive to that directory

$ unzip redesign-repository.zip -d ../redesign-repo

Move to new repository and initialize the new repository with git init
```
$ cd ../redesign-repo
$ git init .
```

This method will rely on the availability of zip / unzip command. I am not sure if its available on every machine.

Create a new git repository from a existing local branch

4 Answers4