How to specify a root directory for a git project?

Question

I'm developing an app that is in the same folder with other apps.

apps/
    app1/
    app2/
    my_app/
        ---------  
        | .git  |
        | file1 |
        | file2 | <-- git repo
        | file3 |
        ---------
    app3/

I have the contents of my_app in a git repository and to install it, it has to have that exact parent directory name, so the users have to create the my_app directory and clone the repository contents into that.

The other possibility would be to create the repo inside apps/, but then I'd have to ignore all the other content in the apps/ directory.

What's the best way to go about this so cloning or downloading tagged releases automatically creates the correct directory for my project?

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:52

If I were you I would either

Make the apps directory your git repo, ignore everything outside my_app (see e.g. Make .gitignore ignore everything except a few files)
Make apps a git repo and my_app a submodule. Let everyone clone the outer git repo.

The reason: you cannot control what's outside of your repository with git...

Edit maybe a better solution would be to modify your app so that installing it does not depend on the name of the folder the source is in...

How to specify a root directory for a git project?

1 Answers1