How to get access to the files stored on another repository in code

Question

I want to get the access (read) files with text which located on another repository. Is it possible to do at all?

We faced the problem of preserving the history of big files if we place them in the same repo. For every commit it saves another copy of these files in History, which leads to very understandable issues. So we decided to create another repo and store them there. But I have noe exp how can I access it from the code inside the current solution.

I'd be nice to get the filePath of this files in currect solution, so can read them and process.

Answer 1

If you want to reference something, it either needs to be placed alongside your project, or you need a build step that retrieves it and places it somewhere your project can reference.

If these are actual text files you're wanting to read at runtime, those text files need to be discoverable by some means... The fact they're in another repository doesn't help, because that's just another file path that you aren't aware of.

I'd recommend building/publishing your other repository to some discoverable location that your main project can reference at build time or run time.

Answer 2

You can use git clone operation, and just download files to your project. In your main project add rules to .gitingnore to skip those big files from main repo.

Answer 3

You should take a step back and revisit the original problem - large files bogging down the repo. As I noted in comments, what you say (that each such file is copied in every commit) is not accurate; but it is true that large files - especially large binary files - can cause problems in git repos.

And the standard tool to solve those problems is LFS. This creates a separate "LFS repo" and manages its relationship to the base repo automatically, which means questions about how to manually read files from a different repo can be avoided entirely.