How to Upload Zip File Onto Gitlab From Cmputer

Ordinarily, when you want to inspect the code that'due south office of a Git repository, you lot clone the repository down to your local surroundings and open the entire projection in your text editor. However, sometimes all you lot really want to look at is one particular file to help evaluate whether you want to explore the projection further. In this case, information technology doesn't make sense to clone the entire project.

Luckily, if the projection you're because is hosted on GitLab, there are more than a few ways to download a single file instead of the entire projection. This article shows y'all a few of these methods:

• Downloading a file straight from the browser
• Using the GitLab API
• Using Git Archive

Each of these involves tradeoffs, but depending on your level of technical feel, one of them should make the nigh sense for you. Let's take a look at these three approaches.

Manually Download from the Browser

GitLab has a robust spider web interface that allows you to browse all the files in a repository, read the project documentation, and much more, all from right within your favorite web browser. Equally such, this can be i of the easiest means to download a unmarried file, and recent updates to the GitLab interface accept made this much more than intuitive. For example, if y'all want to download the installation instructions for Inkscape, a pop open-source prototype editor, yous tin can do this correct from within your browser:

1. Find the URL for the GitLab repo where your file exists. In this instance, it'south https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape
2. Click through the diverse folders of the projection until y'all observe the file yous're looking for. In this case, it's in the root of the repository, so no need to click through folders.
3. Click the file entry so that you can see the contents of the file. You'll also notice that the URL at present contains the name of the file. In this example, the URL would exist https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/blob/master/INSTALL.md, and you would be able to encounter the contents of the file on the screen.
4. Yous should now encounter a download push near the top right corner of the file in this new view. Clicking this push will either download the file to the default download location on your machine or prompt y'all for where you desire to salvage the file. After selecting a location, yous will accept the file downloaded locally.

Compared to many of the other methods in this article, this approach can exist relatively tiresome. If you're looking to download files from multiple repositories or back up the aforementioned file over a period of many days or weeks, you accept to have this action each and every time, and it's difficult to automate.

However, information technology also requires the to the lowest degree technical knowledge of whatever of the methods discussed in this commodity; almost anyone who knows how to use a web browser can practice it. If you're only looking to support a single file every one time in a while or don't take programming or command line experience, this is a neat fashion to support a single file from a GitLab repository.

Using the GitLab API

If you're comfortable with the command line or are looking for a more than readily automated solution, GitLab besides has a Residual API that allows you to download single files. You can either use one of the many API clients available or brand the API call to a single file using cURL through the command line, which is what yous'll see here.

First, discover the GitLab ID for the project. This is visible on the main project page.

One time you've found the project ID, you can construct the URL for the file y'all're trying to download. For instance, if you're trying to download the installation instructions as in the concluding example, using the project ID yous institute in pace one, your cURL command would be:

curl https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/3472737/repository/files/INSTALL.dr./raw?ref=master > local_file_name

Substitute 3472737 with the projection ID for the repo you lot're trying to download and substitute INSTALL.physician with the file y'all're trying to download. If y'all're attempting to download a file from any co-operative other than master, make sure you update the ref value too. You can also change local_file_name to the name you want the file to exist afterwards information technology's downloaded.

If your repository is non public, you'll take to include your GitLab token in the request besides.

One of the main benefits of this method is that if you need to back up files from dissimilar repositories, yous tin can automate the process via Fustigate script or a similar process. If you need to access single files from GitLab every bit part of a larger project, y'all can use i of the many API clients, making this potentially much more efficient than downloading files manually through the browser.

The downsides to this method are that it does require you to take command line or programming experience, and it isn't as straightforward.

Using Git Archive

In our previous commodity about archiving single files from GitHub, we mentioned that y'all can download a single file from a GitHub repository via SVN. Although this is a normally requested feature in GitLab, it's not currently possible.

Nonetheless, there is a Git command called archive, which you can use similarly to the SVN method, and GitLab does currently support that control.

The git archive command requires you lot to specify multiple parameters:

• --remote: The path to the git repository that contains the file you are trying to copy
• The proper noun of the file that you want to re-create (in our case, INSTALL.doc)
• -o FILENAME: The proper name you want the generated zip archive to have once the copy is complete.

Later specifying all these parameters, the final command would look something like this:

git archive --remote=ssh://git@gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape.git HEAD INSTALL.doc -o installing.nada

This will download the INSTALL.md file that you've seen in the previous examples equally installing.naught in your current directory.

To get to a single file, yous can chain a few more commands (unzip and make clean up the downloaded zip file) into a one-line command that downloads, extracts, and cleans up the original zip to leave u.s.a. with simply the file you want to download.

The final command looks like this:

git archive --remote=ssh://git@gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape.git HEAD INSTALL.doc -o installing.null && unzip installing.zip && rm installing.nix

When running this yourself, you should substitute the path to your repository and file to ensure it runs properly.

Once more, this method is a bit more than technical than downloading a file manually through the browser, as it assumes y'all have at least a bones familiarity with the control line and Git commands. Merely merely similar the whorl method, it tin too be automated every bit part of Bash scripts or any other automation that supports Git, which tin can exist useful.

Which Is Right for Yous?

Hopefully, yous've institute a solution here that works for you and your technical skills. If you lot're comfy with scripting and the command line, downloading a single file from a GitLab repository through their API can exist very quick. If you're more comfortable in a browser, using the native GitLab interface might be the best option for you.

If you lot need total repository backups instead of just unmarried files or directories, check out BackHub. BackHub, the leading provider of GitHub repository backups, will soon support GitLab, allowing yous to back up your unabridged repository, including metadata. It takes simply minutes to get started. You'll have a daily fill-in of your repo that can be restored quickly if disaster strikes.

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Source: https://www.backhub.co/blog/how-to-back-up-single-file-gitlab

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