If you use multiple git repositories, it’s only a matter of time until you’ll want to refactor some files from one project to another. Today at Pulse we reached the point where it was time to split up a very large repository that was starting to be used for too many different sub-projects.
After reading some suggested approaches, I spent more time than I would have liked fighting with Git to actually make it happen. In the hopes of helping someone else avoid the same trouble, here’s the solution that ended up working best. The solution is primarily based on ebneter’s excellent question on Stack Overflow.
Another solution is Linus Torvald’s “The coolest merge, EVER!” Unfortunately, his approach seems to require more manual fiddling than I would like and results in a repository with two roots. I don’t completely understand the implications of this, so I opted for something more like a standard merge.
Goal:
- Move directory 1 from Git repository A to Git repository B.
Constraints:
- Git repository A contains other directories that we don’t want to move.
- We’d like to perserve the Git commit history for the directory we are moving.