From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 22:38:50 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH v10 0/9] submodule inline diff format
Message-ID: <xmqqr39cjwxx.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CA+P7+xrQy33gt8bnsagLVPAHhZPZx-3s0E_Aj7tOwXnHjOoCBg@mail.gmail.com>

Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> writes:

> So we should support the gitlink to a repository stored at <path>
> without stuff inside the .git/modules, and we should support submodule
> gitlinks with a proper .gitmodules setup. I don't think we should
> die() but we should error properly so I will introduce a _gently()
> variant of these functions, and die properly in the regular flow.

Because "git diff [--cached] [<tree-ish>]" in the top-level is
driven by a gitlink in the index, immediately after adding a new
submodule to the index but before describing it in .gitmodules you
might not have a name (and you know in that case the path will
become the name when adding it to .gitmodules).  Also a gitlink in
the index may correspond to a submodule the user of the top-level is
not interested in, so there may not be anything in .git/modules/
that corresponds to it.  In these cases, I suspect that you do not
want to die, but you can just tell the user "I do not have enough
information to tell you a useful story yet".