Problem with multiples levels of submodules

Hi there,

I'm seeing a strange thing with multi-level submodules. Not sure what's going on, but it feels like a bug. (I'm doing this on git "2.45.2.windows.1").

For a while, I've been globally setting the recursive and active config options:
    git config --global submodule.recurse true
    git config --global submodule.active .
This has the benefit that I don't need to "git submodule init" new
modules since everything is active.

The weirdness happens when there are submodules within a submodule.

I can reproduce it by just creating 3 git repositories (I have only
tried with GH hosted repos, maybe its different if done locally).
Each repo has a directory within it, and that directory is a submodule
of the next one.
    top -> middle -> bottom

Now, if I don't set the global config above, I can:
    "git clone --recurse-submodules <PATH>" to get everything.
Or:
    "git clone <PATH>", "cd", "git submodule init", "git pull" etc. to
again get everything.

But if I set the global options, I can do:
    "git clone <PATH>" to clone the top level.
    "cd top" to go in there.
    "git pull" to update everything, including submodules.
But while cloning "middle", it gives me an error:
    fatal: not a git repository: ../../.git/modules/middle/modules/bottom

Something is getting confused and thinks there are worktrees involved:
    ".git/modules/middle/config" has "worktree" line in the [core]
section (this appears to be normal).
    ".git/modules/middle/modules/bottom/config" is not a repository,
but just a "[core] worktree" section (definitely not normal).

This all works fine if there is only one level of submodules (top->middle).

Any ideas?

Regards, -Jeppe

Hi again,

So I made a repro - it even fails locally (you have to explicitly allow submodules to work with "file" transport).

Try the following: git config --global protocol.file.allow always

mkdir bottom cd bottom git init echo hello > bottom.txt git add . git commit -m Bottom cd ..

mkdir middle cd middle git init echo hello > middle.txt git add . git commit -m Middle git submodule add ../bottom bottom git commit -m MiddleSub cd ..

mkdir top cd top git init echo hello > top.txt git add . git commit -m Top git submodule add ../middle middle git commit -m TopSub cd ..

git clone --recurse-submodules top clone_ok

git config --global submodule.recurse true git config --global submodule.active .

git clone --recurse-submodules top clone_err

Note: If those submodule settings are set initially, then even
creating the top repository fails.

Regards, -Jeppe

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 3:54 PM Jeppe Øland <joland@gmail.com> wrote: