How do I clone a Git repository into a specific folder?

Option A:

git clone git@github.com:whatever folder-name

Ergo, for right here use:

git clone git@github.com:whatever .

Option B:

Move the .git folder, too. Note that the .git folder is hidden in most graphical file explorers, so be sure to show hidden files.

mv /where/it/is/right/now/* /where/I/want/it/
mv /where/it/is/right/now/.* /where/I/want/it/

The first line grabs all normal files, the second line grabs dot-files. It is also possibe to do it in one line by enabling dotglob (i.e. shopt -s dotglob) but that is probably a bad solution if you are asking the question this answer answers.

Better yet:

Keep your working copy somewhere else, and create a symbolic link. Like this:

ln -s /where/it/is/right/now /the/path/I/want/to/use

For your case this would be something like:

ln -sfn /opt/projectA/prod/public /httpdocs/public

Which easily could be changed to test if you wanted it, i.e.:

ln -sfn /opt/projectA/test/public /httpdocs/public

without moving files around. Added -fn in case someone is copying these lines (-f is force, -n avoid some often unwanted interactions with already and non-existing links).

If you just want it to work, use Option A, if someone else is going to look at what you have done, use Option C.

The example I think a lot of people asking this question are after is this. If you are in the directory you want the contents of the git repository dumped to, run:

git clone git@github.com:whatever .

The "." at the end specifies the current folder as the checkout folder.

You can use following git command to clone with custom directory name

git clone <git_repo_url> <your_custom_directory_name>

Note: You don't need to create your custom directory because it will create automatically

When you move the files to where you want them, are you also moving the .git directory? Depending on your OS and configuration, this directory may be hidden.

It contains the repo and the supporting files, while the project files that are in your /public directory are only the versions in the currently check-out commit (master branch by default).

From some reason this syntax is not standing out:

git clone repo-url [folder]

Here folder is an optional path to the local folder (which will be a local repository).

Git clone will also pull code from remote repository into the local repository. In fact it is true:

git clone repo-url  =  git init + git remote add origin repo-url + git pull

If you are in the directory you want the contents of the git repository dumped to, run:

git clone git@github.com:origin .

The "." at the end specifies the current folder as the checkout folder.

Although all of the answers above are good, I would like to propose a new method instead of using the symbolic link method in public html directory as proposed BEST in the accepted answer. You need to have access to your server virtual host configurations.

It is about configuring virtual host of your web server directly pointing to the repository directory. In Apache you can do it like:

DocumentRoot /var/www/html/website/your-git-repo

Here is an example of a virtual host file:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName example.com

    DocumentRoot /path/to/your-git-repo
    ...
    ...
    ...
    ...
</VirtualHost>

For Windows user 

1> Open command prompt.
2> Change the directory to destination folder (Where you want to store your project in local machine.)
3> Now go to project setting online(From where you want to clone)
4> Click on clone, and copy the clone command.
5> Now enter the same on cmd .

It will start cloning saving on the selected folder you given .