Subject: [PATCH] submodule add: improve message when resolving a relative url fails

From: Jens Lehmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 22:00:04 +0200

A "git submodule add ../sub" interprets "../sub" relative to the default
remote of the superproject. To be able to do that, a url for that remote
has to be set in the superprojects .git/config. If that is not the case
the command fails with:
	"remote (origin) does not have a url defined in .git/config"

This neither mentions the relative repository nor that the .git/config of
the superproject is the one with the missing url. And as a novice user
could assume that relative paths would work just like absolute paths do
in the filesystem and run into this by accident, the message is not very
helpful.

So change that to
	"Cannot resolve "../sub" relative to remote (origin), its url
	 is not set in .git/config"
to give the user a clue that "git submodule add" interprets a relative
path as being relative to its default remote, not the work tree.

Signed-off-by: Jens Lehmann <[email-masked]>
---

Am 31.05.2011 21:30, schrieb Jens Lehmann:
> Am 30.05.2011 23:51, schrieb Marc Branchaud:
>> Patch 1 tests the case where "submodule add" fails if the path to the
>> submodule repo is relative (i.e. starts with "../").  This currently fails
>> with "remote (origin) does not have a url defined in .git/config".  Maybe
>> there's a reason to fail?  If so, a better error message would be appreciated.
> 
> I stumbled across this behavior now and then too, but according to the
> commit it added (f31a522a2d) it is intended that adding a relative path
> behaves differently than using an absolute path (it resolves relative to
> the superproject's origin, not the filesystem, and to be able to do that
> the superproject's .git/config has to have an url defined for it). But
> you are right about the error message, it really isn't that helpful ...

What about this patch?

 git-submodule.sh |    2 +-
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/git-submodule.sh b/git-submodule.sh
index d189a24..14ef1d4 100755
--- a/git-submodule.sh
+++ b/git-submodule.sh
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ resolve_relative_url ()
 {
 	remote=$(get_default_remote)
 	remoteurl=$(git config "remote.$remote.url") ||
-		die "remote ($remote) does not have a url defined in .git/config"
+		die "Cannot resolve \"$1\" relative to remote ($remote), its url is not set in .git/config"
 	url="$1"
 	remoteurl=${remoteurl%/}
 	sep=/
-- 
1.7.5.3.412.gb2afd.dirty