Git Submodule and sparse-checkout

Introduction

So, I was trying to find the best way to put tutorials into my site. I thought of every tutorial as an individual that has docs, codes, and e.t.c. After some research, I found out that the best way to do that is to create a repository for each tutorial that I have. Then put them in my site using git submodule. And if I only want the docs to be included, I can use git sparse-checkout.

Add a repository as a git submodule

I created a new repository on GitHub. My tutorial section is in this path: site/content/tutorials. So, I wanted to use git submodule to include it on this specific path. To do that, I have executed the code below:

git submodule add https://github.com/LiterallyTheOne/Pytorch_Tutorial site/content/tutorials/pytorch

This code has created a file called .gitmodules with the content below:

[submodule "site/content/tutorials/pytorch"]
	path = site/content/tutorials/pytorch
	url = https://github.com/LiterallyTheOne/Pytorch_Tutorial

And now, I have access to my other repository.

Use git sparse-checkout to only check docs

I wanted to only have the docs directory of my repository. To do that, I executed the code below:

cd content/tutorials/pytorch
git sparse-checkout init --cone
git sparse-checkout set docs

First, I went to the directory of my tutorial. Then, I initialized the sparse-checkout. And finally, I set the sparse-checkout to docs. Now, the other directories are not being included in my site repository.

Final thoughts

Git is a powerful tool with so many great features. Git submodule helps you to include other repositories in your repository. It is way more convenient than copying all the code. Git sparse-checkout helps you to check out certain files. I used both of them to include my tutorials on my site.