Bug report: git reset --hard does not fix submodule worktree

Hello, Git folks. I managed to accidentally break the our test lab by attempting to git mv a directory with a submodule inside. It seems like if a reset does an undo on a mv, the workfold entry should be fixed to put the submodule in its old location. Consider the following sequence of commands:

Setup a git repo with a submodule: mkdir metaproject mkdir upstream cd metaproject git init cd ..\upstream git init echo hello > test.txt git add -A git commit -m "an example commit" cd ..\metapoject mkdir start git submodule add ../upstream start/upstream git add -A git commit -m "Add submodule in start/upstream."

Move the directory containing the submodule: git mv start target git add -A git commit -m "Moved submodule parent directory."

Check that the worktree got correctly fixed by git mv; this output is as expected:
type .git\modules\start\upstream\config
[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = false
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
        symlinks = false
        ignorecase = true
        worktree = ../../../../target/upstream
[remote "origin"]
        url = C:/Users/bion/Desktop/upstream
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/master

Now try to go back to the previous commit using git reset --hard:
git log --oneline
 1f560be (HEAD -> master) Moved submodule parent directory.
 a5977ce Add submodule in start/upstream.
git reset --hard a5977ce
 warning: unable to rmdir target/upstream: Directory not empty
 HEAD is now at a5977ce Add submodule in start/upstream.

Check that the worktree got fixed correctly; it did not:
type .git\modules\start\upstream\config
[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = false
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
        symlinks = false
        ignorecase = true
        worktree = ../../../../target/upstream
[remote "origin"]
        url = C:/Users/bion/Desktop/upstream
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/master

Is git reset intended to put the submodule in the right place? If not, is there a command we can run before/after reset to restore consistency?

Thanks folks!

Billy O'Neal

On Fri, Nov 3, 2017 at 5:46 PM, Billy O'Neal (VC LIBS) <bion@microsoft.com> wrote:

git-reset sounds like it ought to put submodules back into another directory. Historically git-reset did not touch submodules at all; a recent release introduced the --recurse-submodules flag for git-reset, which would cover this situation. However that particular situation (with moving the submodules) seems to be not covered yet,

./t7112-reset-submodule.sh ... not ok 69 - git reset --hard: replace submodule with a directory must fail # TODO known breakage

The submodule "fix-it-all" command would be

    git submodule update --init --recursive

IMHO.