{"id":187,"date":"2022-05-23T14:14:43","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T05:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/adamnoto\/?p=187"},"modified":"2022-05-23T14:14:43","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T05:14:43","slug":"how-to-merge-a-subfolder-git-into-its-parents-git-repo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/adamnoto\/2022\/05\/23\/how-to-merge-a-subfolder-git-into-its-parents-git-repo\/","title":{"rendered":"How to merge a subfolder git into its parent’s git repo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since years ago I have this centralized repo where I kept notes, code snippets, diagrams, lab codes and basically everything I have learned that I think will be valuable. I do that because I know I would like to come again someday there and regain knowledge quickly. I find this organization to be extremely helpful for me.<\/p>\n

So, naturally, when I took the CSCI-E95 last semester<\/a>, which was awesome, I wanted to have whatever I will learn to be inside that centralized repo as well. And of course, the code artifact is of utmost importance.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, the class has its own working repo where us students will submit our works to. So, even if I pull that class repo into my primary repo, the class repo will always be a distinct repo by its own right. That is, even if my folder looks like this:<\/p>\n

\r\n\r\nroot\r\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 labs\r\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 languages\r\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 ...\r\n\u2514\u2500\u2500 classes\r\n    \u2514\u2500\u2500 hes\r\n        \u2514\u2500\u2500 e95-spring-2022-adamnoto\r\n<\/pre>\n
The e95-spring-2022-adamnoto<\/code>\u00a0folder lived on its own repo, detached from whatever the root<\/code>\u00a0folder’s repo is.<\/p>\n
How should I merge it? …that’s what I wondered.<\/p>\n
The easiest thing I can do, is to simply remove the .git<\/code>\u00a0folder inside the E95 repo and merge that into my main repo.<\/p>\n
But then, I will lose my carefully crafted commits history:<\/p>\n
\"Commits<\/p>\n
I can as well make the E95 repo to be a submodule of the parent repo. But, that’s also not that desirable as the E95 repo’s is not in my “domain.” Although I believe I will forever have the access to the repo, or that I can ask to regain the access if I lost it for some reason; the fact stays that I completely will have no prime control over the source repo. What if someone mistakenly force-pushed something and deleted everything, and I have no backup? My hard work may forever be gone. (Yeah, I do have a backup; but still! ?)<\/p>\n
So naturally, I want to:<\/p>\n