Re: [PATCH v5] clone: set submodule.recurse=true if user enables feature.experimental flag

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 13, 2021, 19:53 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqeeaxw28z.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAN3QUFa3TRh9rvV3xS8XWd-dTvMqS=2j5Vhvp0wP33oPte9_2w@mail.gmail.com>

Mahi Kolla <mahikolla@google.com> writes:

> Unfortunately, the submodule.recurse variable can't be used as the
> opt-in flag because this would cause commands to run recursively even
> if developers don't have submodules in their project (aka don't run
> git clone --recurse-submodules).

If you cloned without recurse-submodules and lack submodules, wouldn't it be a no-op to have submodule.recurse set to true, so it would not hurt anyway?

IOW, that may already solve the original problem you wanted to solve---those who want their submodules recursively descended into by default can just set submodule.recurse to true (in ~/.gitconfig presumably) and after "git clone" with --recurse-submodules they will get what they want, no? Am I missing something obvious?

Thanks.