Is it possible to do a sparse checkout without checking out the whole repository first?

Question

I\'m working with a repository with a very large number of files that takes hours to checkout. I\'m looking into the possibility of whether Git would work well with this kin

Answer 1

I'm new to git but it seems that if I do git checkout for each directory then it works. Also, the sparse-checkout file needs to have a trailing slash after every directory as indicated. Someone more experience please confirm that this will work.

Interestingly, if you checkout a directory not in the sparse-checkout file it seems to make no difference. They don't show up in git status and git read-tree -m -u HEAD doesn't cause it to be removed. git reset --hard doesn't cause the directory to be removed either. Anyone more experienced care to comment on what git thinks of directories that are checked out but which are not in the sparse checkout file?