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git submodule ignores --git-dir

DISCUSSION Filip Gospodinov 3 participants 4 messages Jun 15, 2016

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Filip Gospodinov

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#0 lore raw

Hi!

I use the --git-dir flag in some scripts such that I don't need to cd back and forth. Recently, I've discovered that --git-dir does not seem to work correctly for git submodule. Here is a short snippet to reproduce that behavior:

mkdir repo1 subm
(cd subm; git init; git commit -m 1 --allow-empty)
(cd repo1; git init; git submodule add ../subm subm; git commit -m "add subm") git clone repo1 repo2
git --git-dir=$PWD/repo2/.git submodule update --init

which errors with the following output:

No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path 'subm'

But this works:
cd repo2; git --git-dir=$PWD/.git submodule update --init

I know that for this particular use case I can just use git clone --recursive and that other use cases can be worked around by using cd. Still, I wonder if the behavior I discovered is a bug or if it's expected.

git --version
git version 2.5.1

Thanks you!
Filip

#1 lore raw

Am 10.09.2015 um 22:06 schrieb Filip Gospodinov:

Quoted 13 lines

Hi!

I use the --git-dir flag in some scripts such that I don't need to cd back and forth. Recently, I've discovered that --git-dir does not seem to work correctly for git submodule. Here is a short snippet to reproduce that behavior:

mkdir repo1 subm
(cd subm; git init; git commit -m 1 --allow-empty)
(cd repo1; git init; git submodule add ../subm subm; git commit -m "add subm") git clone repo1 repo2
git --git-dir=$PWD/repo2/.git submodule update --init

Quoted 6 lines

which errors with the following output:

No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path 'subm'

But this works:
cd repo2; git --git-dir=$PWD/.git submodule update --init

Thanks for your report containing a nice recipe to reproduce your issue!

Quoted 3 lines

I know that for this particular use case I can just use git clone --recursive and that other use cases can be worked around by using cd. Still, I wonder if the behavior I discovered is a bug or if it's expected.

I don't think this is a bug. The git submodule command needs a work tree to read the .gitmodules file from, that's while it fails when using --git-dir from outside the work tree. But I admit that the error message "No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path ..." could be improved to clearly state that the .gitmodules file wasn't found.

Unfortunately trying to show git the right work tree:

$ git --git-dir=$PWD/repo2/.git --work-tree=$PWD/repo2 submodule update --init

Didn't work as I expected it to either:

fatal: /home/Sledge/libexec/git-core/git-submodule cannot be used without a working tree.

So you'll have to cd into the repo for now.

#2 lore raw
Quoted 13 lines · Jens Lehmann

Am 10.09.2015 um 22:06 schrieb Filip Gospodinov:

Quoted 3 lines

I know that for this particular use case I can just use git clone --recursive and that other use cases can be worked around by using cd. Still, I wonder if the behavior I discovered is a bug or if it's expected.

I don't think this is a bug. The git submodule command needs a work tree to read the .gitmodules file from, that's while it fails when using --git-dir from outside the work tree. But I admit that the error message "No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path ..." could be improved to clearly state that the .gitmodules file wasn't found.

Unfortunately trying to show git the right work tree:

Quoted 7 lines
$ git --git-dir=$PWD/repo2/.git --work-tree=$PWD/repo2 submodule update --init

Didn't work as I expected it to either:

fatal: /home/Sledge/libexec/git-core/git-submodule cannot be used without a working tree.

So you'll have to cd into the repo for now.

There's also "git -C /path/to/repo" which avoids the need for a separate "cd".

author
#3 lore raw
Quoted 8 lines · Jens Lehmann

Unfortunately trying to show git the right work tree:

$ git --git-dir=$PWD/repo2/.git --work-tree=$PWD/repo2 submodule update --init

Didn't work as I expected it to either:

fatal: /home/Sledge/libexec/git-core/git-submodule cannot be used without a working tree.

Yes, that's confusing. I'm not sure how other commands use the --work-tree flag and if having the git-submodule script cd into the work tree would be acceptable. What do you think?

Quoted 3 lines · John Keeping

There's also "git -C /path/to/repo" which avoids the need for a separate "cd".

Thank you, that works!