Re: [PATCH] better git-submodule status output

From: Avery Pennarun <apenwarr@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 7, 2008, 15:36 UTC
Message-ID: <32541b130807070836n5c6efadu184114f7ed1476e0@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0807071621300.18205@racer>

On 7/7/08, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

>  On Mon, 7 Jul 2008, Avery Pennarun wrote:
>  > Hmm... how does doing a fetch wreck your state?
>
> It updates the tracking branches.  And guess what I use the tracking
>  branches for?  Yes, to track other people's changes.
>
>  It would wreck my state.
>
>  Anyway, fetch is wrong, wrong, wrong, if all you want to do is see the
>  _state_ of your submodule.
>
>  If that state is that the superproject has a commit that the submodule
>  knows nothing about, then that is _exactly_ what needs to be reported.
>
>  Don't play cute games,

Hmm, somehow we're not understanding each other here.

I think we have already agreed that "git status" and/or "git submodule status" are obviously not good times to be fetching things. And a perfectly valid "submodule status" is that your submodule can't be updated because you're missing some objects and should fetch.

What I suggested was to recursively do "git fetch" in submodules at the time of doing fetch or pull operations on the supermodule, in order to help ensure that all necessary objects have been fetched. To reference an earlier email of yours, this would *improve* git's usability for people who try to use it on a plane, by reducing the number of cases where they have forgotten to fetch.

(1) Do you think fetching missing submodule objects when fetching the supermodule is a bad idea, or a good one? (2) On top of that, do you think updating the submodule's refs when I do "git fetch" in the supermodule is a good one (it seems you think it don't)? (3) And on top of that, if either of those is a good idea, should it be a config option? (4) And should that option default on or off?

In case anyone cares about my preferences, I think (1) makes sense, (2) is probably too dangerous, (3) should be yes, or perhaps people should be taught to run "git submodule fetch" to fetch submodules and leave "git fetch" alone, and (4) if it's configurable, it should do it by default, because in 99% of situations I can imagine, fetching a supermodule and not fetching its referenced submodule commit will not be useful behaviour.

Thanks,

Avery