Did you know there is a very simple and straightforward command to archive a complete Git repository, while including no historical information? In this brief article I explain both how and why I do it.
Why Archive Your Git Repo?
Every few weeks or so, I find myself needing to archive my Git repo. Often I do this to send code to someone who has no reason to access the repo directly. They just need a snapshot of the code, with no history information, because they won’t be contributing to it.
I also provide a snapshot of my code for every module in my Pluralsight courses. Being able to archive my Git repo into a zip file is very handy.
For some reason, I can never remember how to do this, and find myself looking it up repeatedly. I decided to write about it here so that I could always find it when I need it. And just maybe it will help someone other than just me.
How to Do It
If you want to backup a Git repo, completely detaching it from Git, use one of the following variations of the git archive command:
Zip File
git archive --format zip --output /full/path/to/zipfile.zip master
Tar File:
git archive master > /some/other/path/my-repo.tar
Tar / Bzip:
git archive master | bzip2 > my-repo.tar.bz2
In each of these cases, the word master is the branch I am archiving. You can archive any branch you want, simply by replacing master with the name of your desired branch.
Though not strictly necessary, I like to create my archive from the root of my repo, and have my archive created outside of it.
Note: The archive will not contain the .git directory, but will contain other hidden git-specific files like .gitignore, .gitattributes, etc.
Reference
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/160608/do-a-git-export-like-svn-export
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Did I make any mistakes in this post? Feel free to suggest an edit.