title: How do I clone into a non-empty directory?
body: <p>I have directory A with files matching directory B. Directory A may have other needed files. Directory B is a git repo.</p>
  
  <p>I want to clone directory B to directory A but git-clone won't allow me to since the directory is non-empty.</p>
  
  <p>I was hoping it would just clone .git and since all the files match I could go from there?</p>
  
  <p>I can't clone into an empty directory because I have files in directory A that are not in directory B and I want to keep them.</p>
  
  <p>Copying .git is not an option since I want refs to push/pull with and I don't want to set them up manually.</p>
  
  <p>Is there any way to do this?</p>
  
  <p>Update: I think this works, can anyone see any problems? --></p>
  
  <pre><code>cd a
  git clone --no-hardlinks --no-checkout ../b a.tmp 
  mv a.tmp/.git .
  rm -rf a.tmp
  git unstage # apparently git thinks all the files are deleted if you don't do this
  </code></pre>