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Re: Migrating svn to git with heavy use of externals

From
Avery Pennarun <apenwarr@gmail.com>
Date
Apr 8, 2008, 21:01 UTC
Message-ID
<32541b130804081401n743f39c9o3f016da9dee2eb92@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<47FBDA77.2050402@et.gatech.edu>

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 4:49 PM, D. Stuart Freeman <stuart.freeman@et.gatech.edu> wrote:

>  It's possible to have svn:externals point at a specific revision, but
>  that's not the point.
Right, I forgot that they added that.
Show 7 quoted lines
>  cd ../access
>  git checkout -b 2-5-x sakai_2-5-x  # sakai_2-5-x is an svn import
>  cd ../sakai
>  git checkout -b 2-5-x sakai_2-5-x
>  git submodule add -b 2-5-x ../access access
>
>  Which gives me an error about access already existing.

You should only ever need to add a given submodule once. As far as I can tell, this is a bit of confusion in the way git-submodule works, but I don't have any suggestions for what to do about it yet so I don't complain :)

The way to understand git-submodule's operation is in terms of what it actually does. Roughly speaking, git-submodule-add puts things into .gitmodules and .git/config; git-submodule-init copies that stuff from .gitmodules to .git/config (so if you're the guy who did the add, you can skip this step). Then git-commit actually checks the submodule reference into the parent tree, and someone who pulls your parent tree needs to run git-submodule-update in order to actually retrieve the new submodule pointer.

In other words, git-submodule is very powerful, but also very complicated, and at least one of the things I said up above is probably wrong :) By comparison, svn:externals is at least easy to understand.

Anyway, in this case, what you need to know is that .git/config already contains your submodule information. Sadly, .gitmodules is probably sitting somewhere on your original branch, so it probably doesn't exist. You could remove the entry from .git/config by hand and use git-submodule-add again (thus putting it in both places), or copy the .gitmodules file from the original branch, or git-cherry-pick the commit where you added it.

You should *also* cd into the access subdir and checkout the right revision there; at that time, the next commit to the sakai repository will make sure the submodule reference is to the right place.

Phew, I hope that made things more clear instead of less clear. :)
Have fun,
Avery
Previous: D. Stuart FreemanNext: D. Stuart Freeman
Message 5 of 48 in “Migrating svn to git with heavy use of externals”
  1. D. Stuart FreemanMar 31, 2008
  2. D. Stuart FreemanApr 8, 2008
  3. Avery PennarunApr 8, 2008
  4. D. Stuart FreemanApr 8, 2008
  5. Avery PennarunApr 8, 2008
  6. D. Stuart FreemanApr 8, 2008
  7. Roman ShaposhnikApr 9, 2008
  8. Avery PennarunApr 9, 2008
  9. Roman ShaposhnikApr 9, 2008
  10. Avery PennarunApr 9, 2008
  11. Junio C HamanoApr 9, 2008
  12. Intricacies of submodules [was: Migrating svn to git with heavy use of externals]Roman Shaposhnik, Apr 10, 2008
  13. Junio C HamanoApr 10, 2008
  14. Roman ShaposhnikApr 10, 2008
  15. Junio C HamanoApr 11, 2008
  16. Ping YinApr 11, 2008
  17. Junio C HamanoApr 11, 2008
  18. Roman ShaposhnikApr 12, 2008
  19. Junio C HamanoApr 12, 2008
  20. Roman ShaposhnikApr 14, 2008
  21. Junio C HamanoApr 15, 2008
  22. Ping YinApr 15, 2008
  23. Roman V. ShaposhnikApr 16, 2008
  24. Jeremy Maitin-ShepardApr 17, 2008
  25. Linus TorvaldsApr 17, 2008
  26. Junio C HamanoApr 17, 2008
  27. Roman V. ShaposhnikApr 17, 2008
  28. Martin LanghoffApr 17, 2008
  29. Junio C HamanoApr 17, 2008
  30. Sverre RabbelierApr 17, 2008
  31. Martin LanghoffApr 17, 2008
  32. Sverre RabbelierApr 17, 2008
  33. Martin LanghoffApr 17, 2008
  34. Ping YinApr 18, 2008
  35. Dmitry PotapovApr 17, 2008
  36. Linus TorvaldsApr 17, 2008
  37. Ping YinApr 18, 2008
  38. Jakub NarebskiApr 18, 2008
  39. Ping YinApr 12, 2008
  40. Roman ShaposhnikApr 14, 2008
  41. Ping YinApr 12, 2008
  42. Junio C HamanoApr 12, 2008
  43. Ping YinApr 12, 2008
  44. Ping YinApr 10, 2008
  45. Roman ShaposhnikApr 10, 2008
  46. Intricacies of submodules [was: Migrating svn to git with heavy use of externals]Roman Shaposhnik, Apr 9, 2008
  47. Avery PennarunApr 9, 2008
  48. Avery PennarunApr 18, 2008

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