# Git excludes fails to avoid git submodule warning

2 messages from 2019-03-23 to 2019-03-24. Participants: Klaatu, Duy Nguyen.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/50812

## Klaatu, 2019-03-24 18:15

Subject: Git excludes fails to avoid git submodule warning
Message-ID: <5352115.zUM9HkL6VV@beast>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/5352115.zUM9HkL6VV%40beast

```
Working with Git 2.21.0 on Linux:

The git-add(1) man page says:

"The optional configuration variable core.excludesFile indicates a path to a 
file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add"

But if I do this:

$ echo "docs/themes/*/.git >> .gitexcludes
$ git config core.excludeFiles .gitexcludes
$ git add docs
 warning: adding embedded git repository: docs/themes/foo

It seems to me that this goes against what the git-add(1) man page says.

A workaround I found on stackoverflow is to add any file within the target 
directory:

$ git add docs/themes/foo/README

And then add everything:

$ git add docs

In which case the contents of .gitexcludes is honoured. But that seems like a 
hack.

Am I experiencing the intended result of Git's exclude function? If so, I'll 
happily submit a patch to the man page to clarify this behaviour. If not, I 
guess I'm submitting a bug report here.

Thanks for all the amazing work.

Cheers.

 

```

## Duy Nguyen, 2019-03-24 07:58

Subject: Re: Git excludes fails to avoid git submodule warning
Message-ID: <CACsJy8Dhio4C6p-ZtJ1ZOq-6UP9GiBg3sXsy4YDKamm5p-zqbw@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CACsJy8Dhio4C6p-ZtJ1ZOq-6UP9GiBg3sXsy4YDKamm5p-zqbw%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <5352115.zUM9HkL6VV@beast>

```
On Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 6:01 AM Klaatu <klaatu@member.fsf.org> wrote:
>
> Working with Git 2.21.0 on Linux:
>
> The git-add(1) man page says:
>
> "The optional configuration variable core.excludesFile indicates a path to a
> file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add"
>
> But if I do this:
>
> $ echo "docs/themes/*/.git >> .gitexcludes
> $ git config core.excludeFiles .gitexcludes
> $ git add docs
>  warning: adding embedded git repository: docs/themes/foo
>
> It seems to me that this goes against what the git-add(1) man page says.
>
> A workaround I found on stackoverflow is to add any file within the target
> directory:
>
> $ git add docs/themes/foo/README
>
> And then add everything:
>
> $ git add docs
>
> In which case the contents of .gitexcludes is honoured. But that seems like a
> hack.

That's because you're not supposed to add files inside another
repository. The "git add docs/theme/foo/README" should have failed.

This kind of sharing part of worktree between two repositories (the
top dir and one in docs/themes/foo) has never been officiaily
supported if I remember it correctly.

> Am I experiencing the intended result of Git's exclude function? If so, I'll
> happily submit a patch to the man page to clarify this behaviour. If not, I
> guess I'm submitting a bug report here.
>
> Thanks for all the amazing work.
-- 
Duy

```