Re: tracking submodules out of main directory.

[Alexei Sholik <alcosholik@gmail.com>]

On 27 June 2011 22:05, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> That is what I called "there is no direct way". Wouldn't it be nicer if
> the .gitmodules file in the superproject said something like
>
>        [module "project one"]
>                path = project1
>                url = ...
>                depends = lib1
>        [module "lib1"]
>                path = lib1
>                url = ...
>
> and then "git submodule init project1" run by the end user implied running
> also "git submodule init lib1"?

This is a very nice idea. In my workflow, I find it that I more often
need to clone a repo _including_ its submodules, because the top-level
project won't compile without them. If we had a way to specify
dependencies on submodules, `git pull` could automatically init and
update them.

If a user really wants to clone only the top-level repo without
submodules, git could provide him with an option for `git pull` (like
`git pull --shallow`) to do just that. I think this second scenario is
less common, so it is more reasonable to have a '--shallow' option for
it, instead of '--recursive' counterpart.

-- 
Best regards,
Alexei Sholik