Check out externals without using --depth infinity

I'm attempting to do a partial checkout of a repository path, and I'm
having some difficulty getting externals to be included. It seems to me
that externals are checked out if and only if the folder is checked out
with --depth infinity (or updated with --set-depth infinity).

Is there any way to perform an --empty (or --files) checkout of a path
and subsequently pull in the externals without having to pull in
everything else as well?
Received on 2011-10-11 16:34:45 CEST