Shallow clone?

hi!

I am using GitPython for a personal project and I want to clone repositories on behalf of user but this takes very long time if repos are huge. I am unable to shallow clone because the -- chars are removed when I run the clone method.

GitCommandError: 'git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git' returned with exit code 129
stderr: 'error: unknown option `depth 1 https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git'

What is a workaround for this?
Thanks!

[Byron]

Could it be that your installed git version is too old and doesn't support the 'depth' flag ? What happens if you execute git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git yourself, in a shell ?

I am able to shallow clone in terminal. What would you say is the correct syntax to shallow clone using GitPython's clone method? (just so we are clear) Thanks!

[Byron]

The syntax I used is the correct one, which is the same that git-python uses.

NAME
       git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory

SYNOPSIS
       git clone [--template=<template_directory>]
                 [-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
                 [-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]
                 [--separate-git-dir <git dir>]
                 [--depth <depth>] [--[no-]single-branch]
                 [--recursive | --recurse-submodules] [--] <repository>
                 [<directory>]

When interpreting the error stderr: 'error: unknown option 'depth 1 https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git' correctly, it seems that for some reason, the shell is handing multiple arguments as one.

What does your git-python code look like ?

Thanks for looking into this. I will try to explain whats happening on my side.
I have this code:

import git
git.Git().clone(clone_url, potential_repo)

Where clone_url is a string "https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git"
I know git.Git().clone() is equivalent to git clone ...
and so adding a string "--depth 1 https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git" should execute as "git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git" but something about clone or GitPython Git class is removing the hyphens and thus the command gets interpretted as "git clone depth https://github.com/scrollback/argent.git".

How can I fix this?

[Byron]

If you want to use git directly, you have to pass each argument individually. The call you want would be

git.Git().clone(clone_url, to_directory, depth=1)

Besides, I'd recommend not to use the git command directly unless you have to. A more pythonic way to achieve the same would be this:

repo = git.Repo.clone_from(clone_url, to_directory, depth=1)

repo is the hub from which you can do pretty much everything - have a look at the docs for much more information.

Also I't be grateful if you would prefer to ask questions on Stackoverflow instead, just use the GitPython tag and you will be helped.

Thanks

Oh! I wasn't aware that additional arguments are to be passed with clone method itself. Thanks for clearing this up! Noted about using Repo class and stackoverflow. Thanks so much! 👍

[zhimsel]

@Byron sorry to drag up an old thread, but where is the depth argument in the docs? https://gitpython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/search.html?q=depth&check_keywords=yes&area=default

[Byron]

@zhimsel Could it be one of the kwargs which are automatically passed down as arguments to the git command-line?

[zhimsel]

@Byron ah, you know what, you're probably right. I must have not notice that part where all kwargs are passed to the git command. That makes a lot more sense. I sometimes forget that GitPython is more a wrapper around commandline git than a more direct library (and that's fine).