git export from github remote repository

Question

I\'d like to export from github remote repository, not cloning it. Similar to svn export, I do not want to get .git folder with it. I can work around it by cloning and remov

Answer 1

I ran into this same problem before, and AFAICT, it only seems to work with Bitbucket, e.g.

ysim:~/repos$ git archive --format=tar --prefix=alembic/ --remote=ssh://git@bitbucket.org/zzzeek/alembic.git master | tar -xf -
ysim:~/repos$ ls
alembic

But I found a workaround for GitHub using wget - so in the new GitHub interface, you'll find a button that says "Download ZIP" on the bottom of the right sidebar; right-click on it and copy the link address.

Next, in the command line (I got the idea from here):

wget -qO- -O tmp.zip  && unzip tmp.zip && rm tmp.zip

That will unzip it to a directory called something like repo-master/.

If you want, you can also alias this in your .gitconfig so you don't have to remember/type all of that out, e.g.

export = "! f() { wget -qO- -O tmp.zip \"$1\" && unzip tmp.zip && rm tmp.zip; }; f"

So you can just do something like this in the shell:

ysim:~/repos$ git export https://github.com/ysim/verbinski/archive/master.zip
ysim:~/repos$ ls
verbinski-master