Re: Mixing and matching multiple projects

> But I wonder if we can do without forking the /s/xyzzy/os/.git submodule?
>
> If we *could* do this:
>
> 	cd /s/xyzzy
>       mkdir os/drivers/frotz && populate the directory with sources

>       git add os/drivers/frotz ;# to the top-level superproject!!
>
> to add the "frotz driver" submodule directly to the superproject, then we
> could leave /s/xyzzy/os/.git intact, letting it follow the open source
> world. Because the superproject must be forked in order to keep track of
> what happens in the appliance that supports the "frotz" driver anyway,
> this could result in the minimum amount of forking from the end user's
> point of view.
>
> People who know the Git data structure of course can immediately see that
> this is not supported (and I strongly suspect unsupportable, but my
> suspicion has a history of being wrong from time to time, and that is why
> I am sending this message).  The index at /s/xyzzy/.git/index has to be
> able to record "os" as a gitlink and "os/drivers/frotz/frotz.c" as a
> regular blob at the same time, which is a D/F conflict.
>
> Even if you modify the index D/F conflict check to allow this, you cannot
> write the top-level tree object for the superproject, as "os" needs to be
> recorded as a gitlink to bind the /s/xyzzy/os/.git submodule, while you
> also have to have another "os" in the same top-level tree object as a tree
> object that has a single entry "drivers" (which is a tree) in it, under
> which all the "os/drivers/frotz" subdirectory hang.  All tree traversal
> code would be very unhappy to see such a tree with "duplicate" entry,
> including the unpack-trees machinery used for merging and switching
> branches, connectivity machinery used for fsck, object enumeration, and
> object transfer.  I imagine that it *could* be done, but it won't be a
> mere two-weekend hack; it has to first destroy pretty much everything in
> the current codebase and rebuild it to add such a support.
>
> The "frotz" submodule could be added as /s/xyzzy/frotz/.git and the build
> infrastructure at /s/xyzzy/.git (which we are going to fork anyway) could
> be tweaked so that it creates a symbolic link in /s/xyzzy/os/drivers to
> point there, pretending that there is a 'frotz' subdirectory. While that
> would certainly be a workaround, I am wondering if people who have used
> submodules and/or nested projects more than I have better solutions to
> this puzzle.
>
> Comments?