CODEWITHSUNDEEP
gitbranchgit-submodulesgithooks
errantlinguist
errantlinguist

Reputation: 3818

Git hook for updating Git submodule on branch change

I'm working with some old code that makes use of Git submodules. The code has several divergent branches which are actively being used, and each of these branches depends on unfortunately a different revision of the relevant submodules; this has made development extremely complicated. One of the problems I face is that, when I switch between branches from e.g. master to newfeature-foo using git checkout newfeature-foo, the state of the submodules remains at that of master, which often causes compile errors and even worse can cause differences in runtime behavior that wreaks havoc with user testing and general sanity.

For example, given the .gitmodules configuration:

[submodule "robotcontroller"]
    path = robotcontroller
    url = https://coolrobots.com/repos/robotcontroller
    branch = master
    ignore = dirty

Is there no way e.g. using Git hooks to force the automatic complete re-checking-out of all submodules listed in a .gitmodules file when it changes on checkout of the "root" Git repository?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1485

Answers (2)

phd
phd

Reputation: 94473

post-checkout hook that removes robotcontroller and update all submodules.

#!/bin/sh

# post-checkout hook that update submodules

prev_HEAD="$1"
new_HEAD="$2"
new_branch="$3"

if [ "$new_branch" = 1 ]; then
   if ! grep -Fq robotcontroller .gitmodules; then
      rm -rf robotcontroller
   fi

   git submodule update
fi

exit 0

PS. The correct term for the root Git repository is "superproject". :-)

Upvotes: 3

eedrah
eedrah

Reputation: 2385

It sounds like there are a lot of things going on in your repo that make things confusing. We could go through a lot of back-and-forth to find the settings that are conflicting, but here's what I would do:

Get rid of ignore = dirty

This just hides useful information - perhaps the submodule is not checking out cleanly because it would override files. At the very least, confirm that the submodule is clean before trying any operations on it - cd mysubmodule and git status = clean

Upvotes: 0

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