RFC][Feature] submodule: teach subcommand 'summary' to give summary for nested submodules

Hello everyone,

I was converting the subcommand 'summary'(of command submodule) from shell to C and I realised that the subcommand does not have a '--recursive' option in it, meaning it cannot give out summaries of nested submodules. My opinion on this is that an option should maybe exist for the same.

What are the community's thoughts on this? Should the aforementioned option be added? Is there any feasibility of this option in this case?

Regards, Shourya Shukla

Shourya Shukla <shouryashukla.oo@gmail.com> writes:

If "git submodule summary --recursive" errors out with today's code, no sane user would be using it for any useful purpose, so I would think it is OK to add such a feature.

If it makes a usable UI for large projects that you can only choose between "include no subsubmodules" (i.e. with --no-recursive) or "include all sub(sub)*modules" (i.e. with --recursive) is another matter, though.

Hello Junio,

Sure thing! I will try to plan some makeshift implementation.

I think discussing this idea may be a good approach right now? What you are saying for large projects does provoke thought though.. Also, what do you think may become a problem for large projects in here?

Thank you so much for the feedback BTW :)

Regards, Shourya Shukla

Shourya Shukla <shouryashukla.oo@gmail.com> writes:

Perhaps

    "We want submodule A and B's sub(sub)*modules all the way down
    to the leaf submodule, but directory C houses many submodules,
    among which only one can be active, and we want C/X and its
    sub(sub)*modules all the way down to the leaf but not C/Y nor
    C/Z or any other C/<anything>."

and similar requests along the line.

That's a tough one. Would you advise developing the feature which may work atleast for the "normal" cases? In case it does not work for the aforementioned case and the like, we classify it as a BUG for further correction?

Regards, Shourya Shukla

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 5:08 PM Shourya Shukla <shouryashukla.oo@gmail.com> wrote:

How are the other git-submodule sub-commands working with --recursive? Shouldn't --recursive work in the same way for all the sub-commands?