Re: [BUG] `git reset --hard` fails with `update = none` submodules

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Jun 16, 2021, 01:25 UTC
Message-ID: <YMlS+1F9IND7vxNI@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAKjYmsEHWShuKEOFWnCyU1x5rM7kFrcaN78D7KhhUay8kCvA2g@mail.gmail.com>

On 2021-06-16 at 01:03:40, Rose Kunkel wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> Potentially relevant: `git config --global --list` shows
> ```
> status.showstash=true
> status.submodulesummary=true
> submodule.recurse=true

Thanks for this additional information. This line is the critical piece. Now I get this:

  $ git reset --hard
  fatal: not a git repository: ../../.git/modules/repos/agda
  fatal: could not reset submodule index

Predictably, "git -c submodules.recurse=true reset --hard" also results in the same thing.

The --recurse-submodules option for git reset says this (emphasis mine):

  When the working tree is updated, using --recurse-submodules will also
  recursively reset the working tree of all *active* submodules
  according to the commit recorded in the superproject, also setting the
  submodules' HEAD to be detached at that commit.

On my system, .git/config has this:

  [submodule]
          active = .

So these submodules are active, but they probably should not be, since we haven't checked anything out (or, for that matter, cloned any data) and it wouldn't make sense to try to operate on them automatically with submodules.recurse or --recurse-submodules.

My gut tells me that we should probably mark submodules with update=none set on a clone as inactive. Of course, this is a tricky area that I'm not super familiar with, so opinions or thoughts are welcome.

If folks think this is a good way forward, I'll look into writing a patch, probably tomorrow evening since it's starting to get late here.

-- 
brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA