Re: [PATCH] Remove empty directories when checking out a commit with fewer submodules

> On Monday 11 January 2010, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Mon, 11 Jan 2010, Peter Collingbourne wrote:
> > > Change the unlink_entry function to use rmdir to remove submodule
> > > directories.
> >
> > NAK.  We should not even try to _unlink_ submodule subdirectories; it
> > would be _way_ too easy to lose data that way.  Remember, submodules
> > are a totally different beast from regular files.  They can contain
> > valuable, yet uncommitted data, that is not even meant to be
> > committed.
> >
> > So you say if the submodule directories are empty, it is safe?  Not
> > so. They will never be empty: there is always .git/, and _that_ can
> > contain valuable information that you do not want to throw away, too.
> >  Think of unpushed branches, for example.  That would be _fatal_ if
> > you rmdir() that for me.
> >
> > So please, no,
> 
> I believe what Peter is referring to is the _empty_ directories (and 
> that includes no .git/) that are placeholders for submodules that are 
> deliberately not cloned/checked out. This lets you do things like:
> 
> 	git clone url:to/some/project
> 	cd project
> 	git checkout some-other-branch-with-different-submodules
> 	git submodule update --init
> 
> Of course, once you clone/checkout a submodule, there will be contents 
> in that directory (including the .git/), and Git should not try to 
> remove it.