Deploying a Git subdirectory in Capistrano

Question

My master branch layout is like this:

/ <-- top level

/client <-- desktop client source files

/server

Answer 1

For Capistrano 3, based on @Thomas Fankhauser answer:

set :repository,  "git@github.com:name/project.git"
set :branch, "master"
set :subdir, "relative_path_to_my/subdir"


namespace :deploy do

  desc "Checkout subdirectory and delete all the other stuff"
  task :checkout_subdir do

    subdir = fetch(:subdir)
    subdir_last_folder  = File.basename(subdir)
    release_subdir_path = File.join(release_path, subdir)

    tmp_base_folder = File.join("/tmp", "capistrano_subdir_hack")
    tmp_destination = File.join(tmp_base_folder, subdir_last_folder)

    cmd = []
    # Settings for my-zsh
    # cmd << "unsetopt nomatch && setopt rmstarsilent" 
    # create temporary folder
    cmd << "mkdir -p #{tmp_base_folder}"  
    # delete previous temporary files                
    cmd << "rm -rf #{tmp_base_folder}/*"  
    # move subdir contents to tmp           
    cmd << "mv #{release_subdir_path}/ #{tmp_destination}"   
    # delete contents inside release      
    cmd << "rm -rf #{release_path}/*"   
    # move subdir contents to release             
    cmd << "mv #{tmp_destination}/* #{release_path}" 
    cmd = cmd.join(" && ")

    on roles(:app) do
      within release_path do
        execute cmd
      end
    end
  end

end

after "deploy:updating", "deploy:checkout_subdir"