Creating a new empty branch for a new project

Question

We are using a git repository to store our project  We have our branches departing from the original branch  But now we want to create a small new project to track some documentation  For that we would want to create a new empty branch to start storing our files  and I would want other users of the network to clone that branch   How can we do that   I tried some things  but they didn t work     mkdir proj doc  cd proj doc   git init   git add     git commit -m  first commit    git br proj doc   git co proj doc   git br -d master   git push origin proj doc   It seems to push the branch ok  but when I do a fetch or pull  it downloads information from other branches  and then I also get some extra files from other projects  What s the best solution

User · Answer

The best solution is to create a new branch with --orphan option as shown below

git checkout --orphan <branch name>

By this you will be able to create a new branch and directly checkout to the new branch. It will be a parentless branch.

By default the --orphan option doesn't remove the files in the working directory, so you can delete the working directory files by this:

git rm --cached -r

In details what the `--orphan` does:

--orphan <new_branch>
Create a new orphan branch, named <new_branch>, started from <start_point> and switch to it. The first commit made on this new branch will have no parents and it will be the root of a new history totally disconnected from all the other branches and commits.

The index and the working tree are adjusted as if you had previously run git checkout <start_point>. This allows you to start a new history that records a set of paths similar to <start_point> by easily running git commit -a to make the root commit.

This can be useful when you want to publish the tree from a commit without exposing its full history. You might want to do this to publish an open source branch of a project whose current tree is "clean", but whose full history contains proprietary or otherwise encumbered bits of code.

If you want to start a disconnected history that records a set of paths that is totally different from the one of <start_point>, then you should clear the index and the working tree right after creating the orphan branch by running git rm -rf . from the top level of the working tree. Afterwards you will be ready to prepare your new files, repopulating the working tree, by copying them from elsewhere, extracting a tarball, etc.

User · Answer

The correct answer is to create an orphan branch  I explain how to do this in detail on my blog  Archived link               Before starting  upgrade to the latest version of GIT  To make sure   you   re running the latest version  run  which git       If it spits out an old version  you may need to augment your PATH with   the folder containing the version you just installed        Ok  we   re ready  After doing a cd into the folder containing your git   checkout  create an orphan branch  For this example  I   ll name the   branch    mybranch      git checkout --orphan mybranch       Delete everything in the orphan branch  git rm -rf         Make some changes  vi README txt       Add and commit the changes  git add README txt git commit -m  Adding readme file        That   s it  If you run  git log       you   ll notice that the commit history starts from scratch  To switch   back to your master branch  just run  git checkout master       You can return to the orphan branch by running  git checkout mybranch

User · Answer

If your git version does not have the --orphan option  this method should be used    git symbolic-ref HEAD refs heads  lt newbranch gt   rm  git index  git clean -fdx    After doing some work   git add -A git commit -m  lt message gt  git push origin  lt newbranch gt

User · Answer

Make an empty new branch like this   true   git mktree   xargs git commit-tree   xargs git branch proj-doc   If your proj-doc files are already in a commit under a single subdir you can make the new branch this way   git commit-tree thatcommit path to dir   xargs git branch proj-doc   which might be more convenient than git branch --orphan if that would leave you with a lot of git rm and git mving to do   Try   git branch --set-upstream proj-doc origin proj-doc   and see if that helps with your fetching-too-much problem   Also if you really only want to fetch a single branch it s safest to just specify it on the commandline

User · Answer

Let s say you have a master branch with files directories    gt  git branch   master  gt  ls -la    files and dirs which you may keep in master   git directory1 directory2 file 1    file n   Step by step how to make an empty branch    git checkout    orphan new branch name Make sure you are in the right directory before executing the following command  ls -la  awk   print  9    grep -v git  xargs -I   rm -rf     git rm -rf   touch new file git add new file git commit -m  added first file in the new branch  git push origin new branch name   In step 2  we simply remove all the files locally to avoid confusion with the files on your new branch and those ones you keep in master branch   Then  we unlink all those files in step 3  Finally  step 4 and after are working with our new empty branch   Once you re done  you can easily switch between your branches   git checkout master  git checkout new branch

User · Answer

You can create a branch as an orphan   git checkout --orphan  lt branchname gt    This will create a new branch with no parents  Then  you can clear the working directory with    git rm --cached -r     and add the documentation files  commit them and push them up to github   A pull or fetch will always update the local information about all the remote branches  If you only want to pull fetch the information for a single remote branch  you need to specify it

User · Answer

On base this answer from Hiery Nomus   You can create a branch as an orphan   git checkout --orphan  lt branchname gt    This will create a new branch with no parents  Then  you can clear the working directory with   git rm --cached -r     And then you just commit branch with empty commit and then push  git commit -m  lt commit message gt  --allow-empty git push origin  lt newbranch gt

User · Answer

i found this help   git checkout --orphan empty branch name git rm --cached -r   echo  init empty branch   gt  README md git add README md git commit -m  init empty branch

[git] Creating a new empty branch for a new project

In details what the `--orphan` does:

Examples related to git

Examples related to branch

Examples related to git-branch

[git] Creating a new empty branch for a new project

In details what the --orphan does:

Examples related to git

Examples related to branch

Examples related to git-branch

In details what the `--orphan` does: