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Git Submodules

Small primer on Git submodules and using git-submodule-ext.

Submodules / supermodules are useful because they can contain other Git repos, but there is not any overhead of having to be directly in charge of the other repo's history. This allows you to easily switch around URLs, etc., with your supermodule

Terminology

  • worktree, $WORKTREE - The files you deal with.
  • git-dir, $GIT_DIR - Place where Git data is
  • module - A Git repo whose git-dir might be in it's own worktree or in its supermodule's $GIT_DIR
  • submodule - A module whose git-dir is its supermodule's $GIT_DIR/modules folder. .git is a file instead of a folder, that points to its $GIT_DIR located in the supermodule $GIT_DIR.
  • detached head - No local branch is pointing to your commit. If you make changes, it may be hard to get back to them if you check out another commit.

Cloning a Supermodule

To recursively clone a supermodule, just do a normal clone but with the --recursive option. You can also clone a specific branch. Example:

git clone --recursive git://host/repo.git -b develop

Useful Commands

First of all, see man git-submodule. A quick summary:

  • git submodule
    • add - Add a submodule with the correct stuff, just like git clone
    • foreach - Iterate through submodules. Example: git submodule foreach --recursive 'git status
    • init - Register a submodule specified in your index in and $GIT_DIR/config. Useful if you can't see a submodule in your worktree.
    • update - Checkout submodules to the commits specified in your supermodule's commit.
    • sync - Go through each submodule and set it's origin URL to the URL defined in .gitmodules. This is one way.

Other commands:

  • git rev-parse --git-dir - Get the $GIT_DIR for your module. Useful for inspecting your Git config
  • git config -e, git config --global -e - Use your $EDITOR to edit your Git config (the repo's or your global config)

And extensions:

  • git submodule-ext or git sube
    • foreach - Modified to allow more flexible iteration: post-order, with top-level module, and constrained. Constrained iteration is done by using a list specified in scm.focusGroup in $GIT_DIR/config
    • branch write, branch checkout - Record and checkout the branch your submodules are on, recorded in .gitmodules. You can specify foreach options, including --constrain. If submodule does not have a branch, branch checkout will do nothing.
    • refresh - Makes sure that your submodules are correctly checked out and up to date with remote repos, including checking out the branches specified in .gitmodules. NOTE: This is intended for development. If you write all of your submodule's branches, you may update some of your submodules further than you want.
    • config-sync - Synchronize .gitmodules with the submodules currently in your index.
    • set-url - Like git submodule sync, but with more fine-grained control over how the URLs are set.

Practices

In your supermodule, your submodules will appear as single 'files', which represent the commits of your submodule. You can stage, commit, diff, and checkout those as you wish. Note that having an indexed commit in your submodule does not mean your submodule is at that commit -- for that you use git submodule update.

If you want to commit in your supermodule, you need to be sure to commit / push your submodules first. You can do that with git sube, like so:

git sube foreach -t -r -p 'git gui'

This is post-order, recursive, and includes the top-level, so git gui is called in the super module last.

Git Versions

Right now, Ubuntu 12.04 uses v1.7.9.5. There is more Git submodule functionality in v1.8.2, which you can build from source. Most notable difference is that later versions use relative paths for submodule paths, which simplifies stuff a lot (as in you can move your supermodule and not have to climb through mounds of files).

Direct Supermodule Cloning

To recursively clone another person's supermodule

git clone git://bobby.local/repo
cd repo
git sfe -t -r 'git sube set-url super && yes | git sube refresh -T --no-sync --reset'

Afterwards, restore original urls, then add the direct clone url

remote=local
git remote add $remote "$(git config remote.origin.url)"
git checkout -- .gitmodules
git sube set-url -r --remote origin repo -g
git sube set-url -r --remote $remote super

Adding / Removing Submodules and using config-sync

With config-sync, you can move submodules around, just add the repositories to git (without using git submodule add), rename them, etc, and then re-synchronize .gitmodules with the following command:

git sube config-sync --pre-clean

This will first clear out .gitmodules, add all staged submodules, and for each submodule, note its current remote (the first one listed in .git/config I believe), and its current branch.

Their Branches

If they haven't used git sube branch write, you can still peek at their branches with a remote HEAD. See all of their branches using the following command:

git tsferp 'remote=origin; tmp=$(git name-rev --name-only $remote/HEAD); echo "\tMine: $(git bg)\n\tTheirs: $tmp"'

To reset to their branches

git tsferp 'remote=origin; tmp=$(git name-rev --name-only $remote/HEAD); git checkout -B $tmp $remote/$tmp'

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