jgit - Delete .git directory (or get files without it)

Question

I need to clone a git repo in java. I am using jGit.

The line of code I am using is :

Git clone = Git.cloneRepository().setURI(URIofRepo).setDirectory(localPath).call();

Where URIofRepo is : the github link to my repo and Where localPath is : the directory I want the clone to happen.

This works perfectly. However, since the use of the project I am doing doesn't require a clone for continued work, I simply want the clone to have the contents of the github repo WITHOUT the .git directory.

I tried also using the following :

    File dirToDelete = new File (path   + "/.git");
    FileUtils.deleteDirectory(dirToDelete);

However I got an IO exception saying I am unable to delete the file as follows :

Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: Unable to delete file: C:\\testing\\testRepo1.git\\objects\\pack\\pack-7ca7f11688adda065d62f3394d0e055346beff22.pack

Answer 1

It is possible that the current eclipse process keep an handle on the pack file, preventing its deletion.
As Rüdiger Herrmann suggests in the comments :

If the open file handle is what prevents the file from being deleted, make sure to close the repository that is returned by init :

clone.getRepository().close()

Another approach would be to download an archive of the GitHub repo through its archive link .

Or using JGit to create an archive from your current local repo (see ArchiveTest.java ), and unzip that archive for you to use.

Answer 2

This issue of unable to delete local repository still persisted even after trying following:

clone.getRepository().close()

I could fix the issue and successfully delete local repository after setting "options" value to RECURSIVE delete while calling delete() as follows:

 FileUtils.deleteDirectory(dirToDelete, 1);

This is what delete() document says:

public static void delete(File f, int options) throws IOException Delete file or folder

Parameters: f - File to be deleted

options - deletion options, RECURSIVE for recursive deletion of a subtree, RETRY to retry when deletion failed. Retrying may help if the underlying file system doesn't allow deletion of files being read by another thread.

Answer 3

Whether or not your .close() will have an effect depends on how the repository was created. So even though you are calling close on a Git instance, it may or may not release the resources. I wasted so much of my time before I realized this.

From Jgit documentation :

If the repository was opened by a static factory method in this class, then this method calls Repository.close() on the underlying repository instance. (Whether this actually releases underlying resources, such as file handles, may vary; see Repository for more details.)

If the repository was created by a caller and passed into Git(Repository) or a static factory method in this class, then this method does not call close on the underlying repository.