Re: [PATCH] Remove empty directories when checking out a commit with fewer submodules

From: Johan Herland <johan@herland.net>
Date: Jan 11, 2010, 09:32 UTC
Message-ID: <201001111032.45637.johan@herland.net>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.1001110954410.4985@pacific.mpi-cbg.de>

On Monday 11 January 2010, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 11 Jan 2010, Peter Collingbourne wrote:
> > Change the unlink_entry function to use rmdir to remove submodule
> > directories.
>
> NAK.  We should not even try to _unlink_ submodule subdirectories; it
> would be _way_ too easy to lose data that way.  Remember, submodules
> are a totally different beast from regular files.  They can contain
> valuable, yet uncommitted data, that is not even meant to be
> committed.
>
> So you say if the submodule directories are empty, it is safe?  Not
> so. They will never be empty: there is always .git/, and _that_ can
> contain valuable information that you do not want to throw away, too.
>  Think of unpushed branches, for example.  That would be _fatal_ if
> you rmdir() that for me.
>
> So please, no,

I believe what Peter is referring to is the _empty_ directories (and that includes no .git/) that are placeholders for submodules that are deliberately not cloned/checked out. This lets you do things like:

	git clone url:to/some/project
	cd project
	git checkout some-other-branch-with-different-submodules
	git submodule update --init

Of course, once you clone/checkout a submodule, there will be contents in that directory (including the .git/), and Git should not try to remove it.

Have fun! :)

...Johan

-- 
Johan Herland, <johan@herland.net>
www.herland.net