git --git-dir not working as expected

Solution 1:

You have to define the working dir as well. Confusing I know but it's a flexibility thing.

git --git-dir=/mycode/.git --work-tree=/mycode status

You can read a little more here

Solution 2:

Starting git 1.8.5 (which should be out next week), it will be even simpler:

 git -C "/home/domain/" status

No need to set --git-dir and --work-tree anymore!

However, as noted by OmarL in the comments:

I have found that -C is not quite equivalent to --git-dir --work-tree, because -C does not override the GIT_DIR environment variable.

See commit 44e1e4 by Nazri Ramliy:

It takes more keypresses to invoke git command in a different directory without leaving the current directory:

1. (cd ~/foo && git status) git --git-dir=~/foo/.git --work-tree=~/foo status GIT_DIR=~/foo/.git GIT_WORK_TREE=~/foo git status
2. (cd ../..; git grep foo)
3. for d in d1 d2 d3; do (cd $d && git svn rebase); done

The methods shown above are acceptable for scripting but are too cumbersome for quick command line invocations.

With this new option, the above can be done with fewer keystrokes:

1. git -C ~/foo status
2. git -C ../.. grep foo
3. for d in d1 d2 d3; do git -C $d svn rebase; done

Solution 3:

Based on your comment above, it sounds like you are still running into a problem:

root@erx [/]# git --git-dir=/home/domain/.git --work-tree=/home/domain/ pull origin master
fatal: /usr/local/libexec/git-core/git-pull cannot be used without a working tree

It sounds like you might be intending to run this from crontab or something. You may be better off using cd to switch to your working directory first. For example:

root@erx [/]# (cd /home/domain && git pull origin master)

This will temporarily (in a subshell, which is what the parentheses do) change the current directory to /home/domain, and then run git pull origin master. After the command is complete, your current directory remains whatever it was before the command.