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>] [-f|--force] 13 [--reference <repository>] [--] <repository> [<path>] 14'git submodule' [--quiet] status [--cached] [--recursive] [--] [<path>...] 15'git submodule' [--quiet] init [--] [<path>...] 16'git submodule' [--quiet] update [--init] [-N|--no-fetch] [--rebase] 17 [--reference <repository>] [--merge] [--recursive] [--] [<path>...] 18'git submodule' [--quiet] summary [--cached|--files] [(-n|--summary-limit) <n>] 19 [commit] [--] [<path>...] 20'git submodule' [--quiet] foreach [--recursive] <command> 21'git submodule' [--quiet] sync [--] [<path>...] 22 23 24DESCRIPTION 25----------- 26Submodules allow foreign repositories to be embedded within 27a dedicated subdirectory of the source tree, always pointed 28at a particular commit. 29 30They are not to be confused with remotes, which are meant mainly 31for branches of the same project; submodules are meant for 32different projects you would like to make part of your source tree, 33while the history of the two projects still stays completely 34independent and you cannot modify the contents of the submodule 35from within the main project. 36If you want to merge the project histories and want to treat the 37aggregated whole as a single project from then on, you may want to 38add a remote for the other project and use the 'subtree' merge strategy, 39instead of treating the other project as a submodule. Directories 40that come from both projects can be cloned and checked out as a whole 41if you choose to go that route. 42 43Submodules are composed from a so-called `gitlink` tree entry 44in the main repository that refers to a particular commit object 45within the inner repository that is completely separate. 46A record in the `.gitmodules` (see linkgit:gitmodules[5]) file at the 47root of the source tree assigns a logical name to the submodule and 48describes the default URL the submodule shall be cloned from. 49The logical name can be used for overriding this URL within your 50local repository configuration (see 'submodule init'). 51 52This command will manage the tree entries and contents of the 53gitmodules file for you, as well as inspect the status of your 54submodules and update them. 55When adding a new submodule to the tree, the 'add' subcommand 56is to be used. However, when pulling a tree containing submodules, 57these will not be checked out by default; 58the 'init' and 'update' subcommands will maintain submodules 59checked out and at appropriate revision in your working tree. 60You can briefly inspect the up-to-date status of your submodules 61using the 'status' subcommand and get a detailed overview of the 62difference between the index and checkouts using the 'summary' 63subcommand. 64 65 66COMMANDS 67-------- 68add:: 69 Add the given repository as a submodule at the given path 70 to the changeset to be committed next to the current 71 project: the current project is termed the "superproject". 72+ 73This requires at least one argument: <repository>. The optional 74argument <path> is the relative location for the cloned submodule 75to exist in the superproject. If <path> is not given, the 76"humanish" part of the source repository is used ("repo" for 77"/path/to/repo.git" and "foo" for "host.xz:foo/.git"). 78+ 79<repository> is the URL of the new submodule's origin repository. 80This may be either an absolute URL, or (if it begins with ./ 81or ../), the location relative to the superproject's origin 82repository (Please note that to specify a repository 'foo.git' 83which is located right next to a superproject 'bar.git', you'll 84have to use '../foo.git' instead of './foo.git' - as one might expect 85when following the rules for relative URLs - because the evaluation 86of relative URLs in Git is identical to that of relative directories). 87If the superproject doesn't have an origin configured 88the superproject is its own authoritative upstream and the current 89working directory is used instead. 90+ 91<path> is the relative location for the cloned submodule to 92exist in the superproject. If <path> does not exist, then the 93submodule is created by cloning from the named URL. If <path> does 94exist and is already a valid git repository, then this is added 95to the changeset without cloning. This second form is provided 96to ease creating a new submodule from scratch, and presumes 97the user will later push the submodule to the given URL. 98+ 99In either case, the given URL is recorded into .gitmodules for 100use by subsequent users cloning the superproject. If the URL is 101given relative to the superproject's repository, the presumption 102is the superproject and submodule repositories will be kept 103together in the same relative location, and only the 104superproject's URL needs to be provided: git-submodule will correctly 105locate the submodule using the relative URL in .gitmodules. 106 107status:: 108 Show the status of the submodules. This will print the SHA-1 of the 109 currently checked out commit for each submodule, along with the 110 submodule path and the output of 'git describe' for the 111 SHA-1. Each SHA-1 will be prefixed with `-` if the submodule is not 112 initialized, `+` if the currently checked out submodule commit 113 does not match the SHA-1 found in the index of the containing 114 repository and `U` if the submodule has merge conflicts. 115+ 116If `--recursive` is specified, this command will recurse into nested 117submodules, and show their status as well. 118+ 119If you are only interested in changes of the currently initialized 120submodules with respect to the commit recorded in the index or the HEAD, 121linkgit:git-status[1] and linkgit:git-diff[1] will provide that information 122too (and can also report changes to a submodule's work tree). 123 124init:: 125 Initialize the submodules, i.e. register each submodule name 126 and url found in .gitmodules into .git/config. 127 It will also copy the value of `submodule.$name.update` into 128 .git/config. 129 The key used in .git/config is `submodule.$name.url`. 130 This command does not alter existing information in .git/config. 131 You can then customize the submodule clone URLs in .git/config 132 for your local setup and proceed to `git submodule update`; 133 you can also just use `git submodule update --init` without 134 the explicit 'init' step if you do not intend to customize 135 any submodule locations. 136 137update:: 138 Update the registered submodules, i.e. clone missing submodules and 139 checkout the commit specified in the index of the containing repository. 140 This will make the submodules HEAD be detached unless `--rebase` or 141 `--merge` is specified or the key `submodule.$name.update` is set to 142 `rebase`, `merge` or `none`. `none` can be overridden by specifying 143 `--checkout`. 144+ 145If the submodule is not yet initialized, and you just want to use the 146setting as stored in .gitmodules, you can automatically initialize the 147submodule with the `--init` option. 148+ 149If `--recursive` is specified, this command will recurse into the 150registered submodules, and update any nested submodules within. 151+ 152If `--force` is specified, the submodule will be checked out (using 153`git checkout --force` if appropriate), even if the commit specified in the 154index of the containing repository already matches the commit checked out in 155the submodule. 156 157summary:: 158 Show commit summary between the given commit (defaults to HEAD) and 159 working tree/index. For a submodule in question, a series of commits 160 in the submodule between the given super project commit and the 161 index or working tree (switched by `--cached`) are shown. If the option 162 `--files` is given, show the series of commits in the submodule between 163 the index of the super project and the working tree of the submodule 164 (this option doesn't allow to use the `--cached` option or to provide an 165 explicit commit). 166+ 167Using the `--submodule=log` option with linkgit:git-diff[1] will provide that 168information too. 169 170foreach:: 171 Evaluates an arbitrary shell command in each checked out submodule. 172 The command has access to the variables $name, $path, $sha1 and 173 $toplevel: 174 $name is the name of the relevant submodule section in .gitmodules, 175 $path is the name of the submodule directory relative to the 176 superproject, $sha1 is the commit as recorded in the superproject, 177 and $toplevel is the absolute path to the top-level of the superproject. 178 Any submodules defined in the superproject but not checked out are 179 ignored by this command. Unless given `--quiet`, foreach prints the name 180 of each submodule before evaluating the command. 181 If `--recursive` is given, submodules are traversed recursively (i.e. 182 the given shell command is evaluated in nested submodules as well). 183 A non-zero return from the command in any submodule causes 184 the processing to terminate. This can be overridden by adding '|| :' 185 to the end of the command. 186+ 187As an example, +git submodule foreach \'echo $path {backtick}git 188rev-parse HEAD{backtick}'+ will show the path and currently checked out 189commit for each submodule. 190 191sync:: 192 Synchronizes submodules' remote URL configuration setting 193 to the value specified in .gitmodules. It will only affect those 194 submodules which already have a URL entry in .git/config (that is the 195 case when they are initialized or freshly added). This is useful when 196 submodule URLs change upstream and you need to update your local 197 repositories accordingly. 198+ 199"git submodule sync" synchronizes all submodules while 200"git submodule sync \-- A" synchronizes submodule "A" only. 201 202OPTIONS 203------- 204-q:: 205--quiet:: 206 Only print error messages. 207 208-b:: 209--branch:: 210 Branch of repository to add as submodule. 211 212-f:: 213--force:: 214 This option is only valid for add and update commands. 215 When running add, allow adding an otherwise ignored submodule path. 216 When running update, throw away local changes in submodules when 217 switching to a different commit; and always run a checkout operation 218 in the submodule, even if the commit listed in the index of the 219 containing repository matches the commit checked out in the submodule. 220 221--cached:: 222 This option is only valid for status and summary commands. These 223 commands typically use the commit found in the submodule HEAD, but 224 with this option, the commit stored in the index is used instead. 225 226--files:: 227 This option is only valid for the summary command. This command 228 compares the commit in the index with that in the submodule HEAD 229 when this option is used. 230 231-n:: 232--summary-limit:: 233 This option is only valid for the summary command. 234 Limit the summary size (number of commits shown in total). 235 Giving 0 will disable the summary; a negative number means unlimited 236 (the default). This limit only applies to modified submodules. The 237 size is always limited to 1 for added/deleted/typechanged submodules. 238 239-N:: 240--no-fetch:: 241 This option is only valid for the update command. 242 Don't fetch new objects from the remote site. 243 244--merge:: 245 This option is only valid for the update command. 246 Merge the commit recorded in the superproject into the current branch 247 of the submodule. If this option is given, the submodule's HEAD will 248 not be detached. If a merge failure prevents this process, you will 249 have to resolve the resulting conflicts within the submodule with the 250 usual conflict resolution tools. 251 If the key `submodule.$name.update` is set to `merge`, this option is 252 implicit. 253 254--rebase:: 255 This option is only valid for the update command. 256 Rebase the current branch onto the commit recorded in the 257 superproject. If this option is given, the submodule's HEAD will not 258 be detached. If a merge failure prevents this process, you will have 259 to resolve these failures with linkgit:git-rebase[1]. 260 If the key `submodule.$name.update` is set to `rebase`, this option is 261 implicit. 262 263--init:: 264 This option is only valid for the update command. 265 Initialize all submodules for which "git submodule init" has not been 266 called so far before updating. 267 268--reference <repository>:: 269 This option is only valid for add and update commands. These 270 commands sometimes need to clone a remote repository. In this case, 271 this option will be passed to the linkgit:git-clone[1] command. 272+ 273*NOTE*: Do *not* use this option unless you have read the note 274for linkgit:git-clone[1]'s `--reference` and `--shared` options carefully. 275 276--recursive:: 277 This option is only valid for foreach, update and status commands. 278 Traverse submodules recursively. The operation is performed not 279 only in the submodules of the current repo, but also 280 in any nested submodules inside those submodules (and so on). 281 282<path>...:: 283 Paths to submodule(s). When specified this will restrict the command 284 to only operate on the submodules found at the specified paths. 285 (This argument is required with add). 286 287FILES 288----- 289When initializing submodules, a .gitmodules file in the top-level directory 290of the containing repository is used to find the url of each submodule. 291This file should be formatted in the same way as `$GIT_DIR/config`. The key 292to each submodule url is "submodule.$name.url". See linkgit:gitmodules[5] 293for details. 294 295GIT 296--- 297Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite