Nest only a part of upstream

Sometimes you need only some files of upstream. git-nested has three ways to pick them. You choose them at clone time.

Option	Use it to
--exclude <path>	leave a few paths out, for example test data
--filter <path>	keep only a few paths
--path <dir>	take one folder of upstream as the whole nested folder

Each choice is stored in .gitnested. pull and push follow it.

Leave paths out: --exclude

git nested clone --exclude tests --exclude docs/big.pdf https://github.com/user/lib ext/lib

• Each --exclude is a file or a folder of upstream.

• pull keeps them out.

• push never deletes them upstream.

Keep only some paths: --filter

git nested clone --filter src --filter LICENSE https://github.com/user/lib ext/lib

Each --filter is one of:

• a file of upstream,

• a folder of upstream, with everything in it,

• a regular expression. It must match the whole path, for example docs/.*\.md.

A push gives back the files you left out, as they are upstream. So they are not deleted there.

You can use --filter and --exclude together. Then git-nested keeps what the filter selects, minus the excluded paths.

One folder: --path

Upstream has javascript/, and you want only that, as ext/js/:

git nested clone --path javascript https://github.com/user/lib ext/js

• ext/js/ holds what upstream has in javascript/.

• pull takes only that folder.

• push puts your changes back under javascript/.

--path can not be used with --filter.

Limits

• pull --no-squash and squash: false do not work with any of these. The upstream commits would bring back the files you left out.

• filter, exclude and path can not be changed with git nested config. To change them, clone again:

git nested clone --force --exclude tests https://github.com/user/lib ext/lib