Thanks Shawn.. I did look at the jGit list and I will post there as well. >>But if you want to avoid using the working directory Not sure what this means.. perhaps I have to read up some more... I got as far as what you have suggested with the Git object in the org.eclipse.jgit.api jar. Where I got stumped was the specification of the userid/pwd/repo path parameters that tells git when I init it (as I run on an aws machine with no .git directory initially) to setup shop in a temp working directory that I specify in the init. I was hoping to have an init command that I could pass a valid git repo url, a user name and pwd and local fileDir so that a .git would be created and then I can call checkout to get the part of the tree that I am interested in. If you have any insight.. I'd appreciate your comments. thanks again. S -- View this message in context: http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/JGIT-newbie-question-tp5911913p5912619.html Sent from the git mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html