backing up project which uses git

Question

I'm burning my stuff on a dvd, before a quick reinstall. Never done that with git, being a recent user. So I'm just checking with you guys. If I understood correctly, I just need to backup my project directory project_name (which has .git inside it) watching for hidden files along with it, and when I copy it onto the "new" machine, and install git again, I resume like nothing happened ? Correct ?

Answer 1

If you only want to backup project files (without history), you can use git archive (that way, I do not have to "watch for hidden file")

The script git-archive-all.sh will actually archive all git repositories and submodules in the current path.

Useful for creating a single tarfile of a git super-project that contains other submodules.

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As Charles Bailey rightly mentions in the comments, git bundle is more appropriate, to preserve the history. (git bundle was introduced in February 2007).

See Backing up a git repository with git bundle

git bundle was designed to allow transfer of git commits when there is no direct connection between repositories (i.e.: offline) but using patches is not an option because of the large number of commits and multiple branches.
A git bundle is just one file which can be very easily created and again imported as it can be treated like another remote. A quick example:

jojo@dualtron:~/devel$ git bundle create ~/devel.bdl master test 

and a bundle is saved under ~/devel.bdl containing my master and test branches.
If I am now at repository B I just use jojo@dualtron:~$ git ls-remote devel.bdl which shows me the branches stored in the bundle.
To use the bundle I simple treat it like a remote, using git fetch (for example)

jojo@dualtron:~/git/repoB$ git fetch ~/devel.bdl refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/bundle/*