From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:33:34 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] git submodule: add submodules with git add -f Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <4C33A552.5060008@web.de> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 21:51, Jens Lehmann wrote: > [...] > But while I think adding the --force option to the "git add .gitmodules" > makes perfect sense (as the submodule can't be successfully added until > it is recorded in this file and there is really no point in ignoring > .gitmodules when you decide to use submodules), I'm not so sure about > what to do when the submodule path itself is ignored. > > I see two possible behaviors here: > > a) We just ignore .gitignore and add the submodule anyways (which is >   what this patch does) > > b) We do the same a "git add " does: Print an error >   message, maybe even tell the user to use a - still to be added - >   "--force" (or "-f") option and exit. But without checking out the >   submodule first nor adding or changing .gitmodules. > > IMHO b) is more consistent with the current behavior of "git add". And > when you later decide that the submodules files should live in the > superproject and you drop the submodule, the then probably still > present entry in .gitignore might really shoot you in the foot when > you add new files there and they won't show up because they are still > ignored. > > What do others think? Option C would be treating it like git init as the current patch does. But init isn't strictly comparable to git add or git submodule add since it's not adding something to *another* repository. I really don't care, B or C works for me, although C is of course easier since I don't have to write another patch :) Option b) is more consistent with git-add, but I can't find a way to ask any git tool whether a non-existing path is ignored without actually adding something. git add --dry-run will die on "pathspec 'foo' did not match any files" unless the file exists already.