"git submodule deinit -f ." no longer works when there are no submodules

It used to be possible to run

    git submodule deinit -f .

to remove any submodules, no matter how many submodules you had. That is no longer possible in projects that don't have any submodules at all. The command will fail with:

    error: pathspec '.' did not match any file(s) known to git.

But if I run "git submodule deinit" (without the ".") git tells me:

    Use '.' if you really want to deinitialize all submodules

This is a regression introduced in Git 2.7.0 (and v2.7.0-rv0). "git bisect" points to this commit:

    commit 74703a1e4dfc5affcb8944e78b53f0817b492246 (refs/bisect/bad)
    Author: Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>
    Date:   2015-09-02 14:42:24 -0700

        submodule: rewrite `module_list` shell function in C

One could argue that it makes no sense to run "git submodule deinit -f ." in a repository with no submodules. I've written a continuous integration system for a project where some branches have submodules and other don't, and I found it convenient to don't have to treat those branches differently.

The following shellscript demonstrates the issue. It passes on git version before 2.7.0, and fails on later versions.

--- cut here --- #!/bin/sh # # This script demonstrates the "git submodule deinit ." bug. #

if ! mkdir subdeinit
then
    echo 'Covardly refusing to alter the "subdeinit" directory.' >&2
    echo 'Please remove it, or run this script inside an empty directory.' >&2
    exit 1
fi

cd subdeinit
mkdir repo
cd repo
git init
echo test > test
git add test
git commit -m"Create an initial commit."
if git submodule deinit -f .
then
    echo PASS: git submodule deinit -f . is allowed.
    exit 0
else
    echo FAIL: git submodule deinit -f . is not allowed.
    exit 1
fi
--- cut here ---

Yours,
    /ceder