How are submodule conflicts resolved during rebase?

[Robert Dailey <rcdailey.lists@gmail.com>]

Hey guys,

I'm using Git for Windows 2.3.6. There is a bit of confusion I have
with regards to how submodule conflicts are resolved/handled during a
rebase.

Suppose I have a branch with 10 commits on it, 3 of those commits
contain a change to the same (and only) submodule in the repository.
When I rebase this branch onto the tip of its parent branch, I get a
conflict in each of the 3 commits because the submodule also changed
on the parent branch since my last rebase.

I've seen some cases where I am asked to resolve the submodule
conflict with local or remote. I expect this behavior and it isn't
confusing to me. However, I have also seen cases where rebase auto
resolves the conflicted submodule.

How does Git know to auto resolve some submodule conflicts but not the
others? I find this behavior unpredictable and I haven't found any
documentation on it (I'm giving the git docs the benefit of the doubt
and assuming it's there, since the git docs are very very good).

Help is appreciated. Thank you.