How to delete node_modules from history

[sepuckett86]

Here is my plan to delete node_modules from the history of this repository, because it is a large group of files and does not need to be on Github. Let me know if this is incorrect.
Github resource here

Make a copy of local directory for emergency backup purposes.

Navigate to local directory in the CLI.

Move to master branch (does this matter?)

git filter-branch --force --index-filter \
'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch ./node_modules' \
--prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

Check that node_modules are in .gitignore (they should be already, since I changed that before)

git push origin --force --all

Add node_modules back into my local directory.

[RikSchoonbeek]

I am not very familiar with node_modules, but it seems to me that it contains all the modules/programs that are needed for create-react-app to do it's thing.

On stackoverflow I read something that some people like to keep the node_modules folder in the repo, while others don't.

I also read that the package.json file describes all the modules contained in node_modules, so we may as well use that. I believe the package.json file can than be used to download all the right modules.

[RikSchoonbeek]

You probably can't remove the node_modules folder from the master branch. The master branch is protected against changes. You need to make another branch on which you can remove the node_modules folder, and when that's done (and committed) you can make a pull request for that branch (into the master branch).

I am not sure if the plan you describe above will work, my knowledge of git is not that much. But especially if you start working on a new branch you can do with it whatever you want, and if it doesn't work you can revert back to old commits (or discard the whole branch).

Currently I am busy with the project with Hein and Dex, sunday I will focus on this project and help out if needed.

[sepuckett86]

Thanks for the comments, Rik. I won't be able to make it this Sunday -- I forgot that I had a band concert. But I'll be curious to hear how things go with this project.

About the node_modules -- if some people keep them in their repos then this may be low priority to remove them. I don't know how much space we have on GitHub for learncodeutrecht. I'll hold off for now but keep this as an issue. For people who download the repo, they can use npm install to get the necessary modules.

[030]

.DS_Store could be removed as well

[030]

Regarding the node_modules. It looks like that this folder has been removed. If the repo turns out to become very large, it could be removed from the git history as well in the future.