# Branch switching with submodules where the submodule replaces a folder aborts unexpectedly

3 messages from 2017-10-09 to 2017-10-12. Participants: Thomas Braun, Stefan Beller.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/46939

## Thomas Braun, 2017-10-09 21:29

Subject: Branch switching with submodules where the submodule replaces a folder aborts unexpectedly
Message-ID: <788230417.115707.1507584541605@ox.hosteurope.de>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/788230417.115707.1507584541605%40ox.hosteurope.de

```
Hi,

I'm currently in the progress of pulling some subprojects in a git repository of mine into their own repositories and adding these subprojects back as submodules.

While doing this I enountered a potential bug as checkout complains on branch switching that a file already exists.

I've reproduced it on debian stretch with the following git versions:

master:
git version 2.15.0.rc0.39.g2f0e14e649
pu:
git version 2.15.0.rc0.245.g6d586db062

A script to trigger it is

mkdir -p test/subproject
cd test
git init
touch subproject/1
git add subproject
git commit -m "blah"
cd ..
mkdir subproject
cd subproject
git init
touch 1
git add 1
git commit -m "blubb"
cd ../test
git branch old
git rm -rf subproject
git commit -m "remove blah"
git submodule add ../subproject
git add -A
git commit -m "added subproject"
git branch new
git checkout old

and this fails with 

$LANG=C ./run.sh 
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/XXX/devel/test/.git/
[master (root-commit) 33e6607] blah
 1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 subproject/1
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/XXX/devel/subproject/.git/
[master (root-commit) e817644] blubb
 1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 1
rm 'subproject/1'
[master 9cbfd57] remove blah
 1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 delete mode 100644 subproject/1
Cloning into '/home/XXX/devel/test/subproject'...
done.
[master 1c67e23] added subproject
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 .gitmodules
 create mode 160000 subproject
error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout:
        subproject/1
Please move or remove them before you switch branches.
Aborting

If I'm misusing git here I'm glad for any advice.

Thanks,
Thomas

```

## Stefan Beller, 2017-10-09 21:59

Subject: Re: Branch switching with submodules where the submodule replaces a folder aborts unexpectedly
Message-ID: <CAGZ79kYTY6U0eNwvU0PcDyt_QXGyYGm5VkDvWLtuQgQG6BbtFA@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAGZ79kYTY6U0eNwvU0PcDyt_QXGyYGm5VkDvWLtuQgQG6BbtFA%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <788230417.115707.1507584541605@ox.hosteurope.de>

```
On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 2:29 PM, Thomas Braun
<thomas.braun@virtuell-zuhause.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently in the progress of pulling some subprojects in a git repository of mine into their own repositories and adding these subprojects back as submodules.
>
> While doing this I enountered a potential bug as checkout complains on branch switching that a file already exists.

(And I presume you know about --recurse-submodules as a flag for git-checkout)

This is consistent with our tests, unfortunately.

git/t$ ./t2013-checkout-submodule.sh
...
not ok 15 - git checkout --recurse-submodules: replace submodule with
a directory # TODO known breakage
...

> If I'm misusing git here I'm glad for any advice.

You are not.

Apart from this bug report, would you think that such filtering of
trees into submodules (and back again) might be an interesting feature
of Git or are these cases rare and special?

Thanks,
Stefan

```

## Thomas Braun, 2017-10-12 11:48

Subject: Re: Branch switching with submodules where the submodule replaces a folder aborts unexpectedly
Message-ID: <591155758.21471.1507808930483@ox.hosteurope.de>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/591155758.21471.1507808930483%40ox.hosteurope.de
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kYTY6U0eNwvU0PcDyt_QXGyYGm5VkDvWLtuQgQG6BbtFA@mail.gmail.com>

```
> Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> hat am 9. Oktober 2017 um 23:59 geschrieben:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 2:29 PM, Thomas Braun
> <thomas.braun@virtuell-zuhause.de> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm currently in the progress of pulling some subprojects in a git repository of mine into their
> > own repositories and adding these subprojects back as submodules.
> >
> > While doing this I enountered a potential bug as checkout complains on branch switching that a 
> > file already exists.
> 
> (And I presume you know about --recurse-submodules as a flag for git-checkout)

No I did not know about it. I tend to not know options which don't complete in my shell (patch follows for that).

> This is consistent with our tests, unfortunately.
> 
> git/t$ ./t2013-checkout-submodule.sh
> ...
> not ok 15 - git checkout --recurse-submodules: replace submodule with
> a directory # TODO known breakage
> ...
> 
> > If I'm misusing git here I'm glad for any advice.
> 
> You are not.

Glad to know that.

> Apart from this bug report, would you think that such filtering of
> trees into submodules (and back again) might be an interesting feature
> of Git or are these cases rare and special?

For me not particularly. In my case it is a one time thing going from an embedded project folder to a submodule.

```