Re: [PATCH/RFC v2] git-submodule: multi-level module definition

From: Ping Yin <pkufranky@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 6, 2008, 01:54 UTC
Message-ID: <46dff0320803051754o4b45222es524a62a7cac50b94@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7vd4q8kbey.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 7:18 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 36 quoted lines

> Ping Yin <pkufranky@gmail.com> writes:
>
>  > This patch allows multi-level module definition in .gitmodules as
>  > Linus and Sven Verdoolaege etc. have suggested in mails
>  > "Let .git/config specify the url for submodules"
>  > (http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/48939).
>  >
>  > Following shows an example of such a .gitmodules.
>  >
>  > .gitmodules with with multiple level of indirection
>  > ------------------------------------------------------
>  > [submodule "service"]
>  >    submodule = crawler
>  >    submodule = search
>  > ...
>
> > [submodule "util"]
>  >    url = git://xyzzy/util.git
>  > [submodule "imsearch"]
>  >    path = search/imsearch
>  >    url = git://xyzzy/imsearch.git
>  > [submodule "imcrawler"]
>  >    path = crawler/imcrawter
>  >    url = git://xyzzy/imcrawter.git
>  > ------------------------------------------------------
>
>  I would agree that allowing the user to use a short-hand to name a group
>  of modules the user is interested in would be a good idea, but I think
>  .gitmodules is a wrong place to do so.  The grouping is a user preference,
>  isn't it?
>
>  The place the owner of the repository (not the project) expresses which
>  modules are of interest, what transports she wants to use to access it,
>  etc. is $GIT_DIR/config, and .gitmodules is a vehicle to supply hints to
>  be used when the user populates that information.
>

Not always the case. In my company environment, we have many submodules and have a unified hierachy of modules, and we use the same transports ssh. So after top maintainer give the basic module hierachy config in .gitmodules, other people needn't and even shouldn't consider changing these common config. If other people have special needs, they can of course edit .git/config to add new hierachy or override existing ones in .gitmodules. However, it's better to put the common config in .gitmodules to pass to every one.

I think this may not be a special requirement for my company, so letting .gitmodule record the common module hierachy should be a common requirement in a company environment.

-- 
Ping Yin