1git-submodule(1) 2================ 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-submodule - Initialize, update or inspect submodules 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git submodule' [--quiet] add [-b branch] [--] <repository> <path> 13'git submodule' [--quiet] status [--cached] [--] [<path>...] 14'git submodule' [--quiet] init [--] [<path>...] 15'git submodule' [--quiet] update [--init] [--] [<path>...] 16'git submodule' [--quiet] summary [--summary-limit <n>] [commit] [--] [<path>...] 17 18 19DESCRIPTION 20----------- 21Submodules are a special kind of tree entries which refer to a particular tree 22state in another repository. The tree entry describes 23the existence of a submodule with the given name and the exact revision that 24should be used, while an entry in `.gitmodules` file gives the location of 25the repository. 26 27When checked out, submodules will maintain their own independent repositories 28within their directories; the only link between the submodule and the "parent 29project" is the tree entry within the parent project mentioned above. 30 31This command will manage the tree entries and contents of the gitmodules file 32for you, as well as inspecting the status of your submodules and updating them. 33When adding a new submodule to the tree, the 'add' subcommand is to be used. 34However, when pulling a tree containing submodules, these will not be checked 35out by default; the 'init' and 'update' subcommands will maintain submodules 36checked out and at appropriate revision in your working tree. You can inspect 37the current status of your submodules using the 'submodule' subcommand and get 38an overview of changes 'update' would perform using the 'summary' subcommand. 39 40 41COMMANDS 42-------- 43add:: 44 Add the given repository as a submodule at the given path 45 to the changeset to be committed next to the current 46 project: the current project is termed termed the "superproject". 47+ 48This requires two arguments: <repository> and <path>. 49+ 50<repository> is the URL of the new submodule's origin repository. 51This may be either an absolute URL, or (if it begins with ./ 52or ../), the location relative to the superproject's origin 53repository. 54+ 55<path> is the relative location for the cloned submodule to 56exist in the superproject. If <path> does not exist, then the 57submodule is created by cloning from the named URL. If <path> does 58exist and is already a valid git repository, then this is added 59to the changeset without cloning. This second form is provided 60to ease creating a new submodule from scratch, and presumes 61the user will later push the submodule to the given URL. 62+ 63In either case, the given URL is recorded into .gitmodules for 64use by subsequent users cloning the superproject. If the URL is 65given relative to the superproject's repository, the presumption 66is the superproject and submodule repositories will be kept 67together in the same relative location, and only the 68superproject's URL need be provided: git-submodule will correctly 69locate the submodule using the relative URL in .gitmodules. 70 71status:: 72 Show the status of the submodules. This will print the SHA-1 of the 73 currently checked out commit for each submodule, along with the 74 submodule path and the output of 'git-describe' for the 75 SHA-1. Each SHA-1 will be prefixed with `-` if the submodule is not 76 initialized and `+` if the currently checked out submodule commit 77 does not match the SHA-1 found in the index of the containing 78 repository. This command is the default command for 'git-submodule'. 79 80init:: 81 Initialize the submodules, i.e. register in .git/config each submodule 82 name and url found in .gitmodules. The key used in .git/config is 83 `submodule.$name.url`. This command does not alter existing information 84 in .git/config. 85 86update:: 87 Update the registered submodules, i.e. clone missing submodules and 88 checkout the commit specified in the index of the containing repository. 89 This will make the submodules HEAD be detached. 90+ 91If the submodule is not yet initialized, and you just want to use the 92setting as stored in .gitmodules, you can automatically initialize the 93submodule with the --init option. 94 95summary:: 96 Show commit summary between the given commit (defaults to HEAD) and 97 working tree/index. For a submodule in question, a series of commits 98 in the submodule between the given super project commit and the 99 index or working tree (switched by --cached) are shown. 100 101OPTIONS 102------- 103-q:: 104--quiet:: 105 Only print error messages. 106 107-b:: 108--branch:: 109 Branch of repository to add as submodule. 110 111--cached:: 112 This option is only valid for status and summary commands. These 113 commands typically use the commit found in the submodule HEAD, but 114 with this option, the commit stored in the index is used instead. 115 116-n:: 117--summary-limit:: 118 This option is only valid for the summary command. 119 Limit the summary size (number of commits shown in total). 120 Giving 0 will disable the summary; a negative number means unlimited 121 (the default). This limit only applies to modified submodules. The 122 size is always limited to 1 for added/deleted/typechanged submodules. 123 124<path>:: 125 Path to submodule(s). When specified this will restrict the command 126 to only operate on the submodules found at the specified paths. 127 (This argument is required with add). 128 129FILES 130----- 131When initializing submodules, a .gitmodules file in the top-level directory 132of the containing repository is used to find the url of each submodule. 133This file should be formatted in the same way as `$GIT_DIR/config`. The key 134to each submodule url is "submodule.$name.url". See linkgit:gitmodules[5] 135for details. 136 137 138AUTHOR 139------ 140Written by Lars Hjemli <hjemli@gmail.com> 141 142GIT 143--- 144Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite