Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 1/2] rm: don't fail when removing populated submodules

From: Jens Lehmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 18:44:40 +0200

Am 16.08.2012 23:56, schrieb Junio C Hamano:
> Jens Lehmann <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
>> Am 09.07.2012 21:38, schrieb Junio C Hamano:
>>> Jens Lehmann <[email-masked]> writes:
>>>
>>>> Cool, so let's drop this patch and I'll teach "rm" to handle
>>>> populated submodules according to what we do for regular files:
>>>> Make sure there are no modifications which could get lost (unless
>>>> "-f") and remove all tracked files and the gitfile from the work
>>>> tree (unless "--cached") before removing the submodule from the
>>>> index. If the submodule uses the old layout with the .git
>>>> directory instead of a gitfile we error out just like we do today.
>>>
>>> Alternatively we could "mv" .git directory out of the way and the
>>> next "git checkout" of a branch that still has the submodule can
>>> make a gitfile to point there, no?
>>
>> Yup. That would mean a smooth transition for legacy .git-dir
>> submodules into the new gitfile world.
>>
>>>> And we didn't talk about untracked or ignored files which may live
>>>> inside the submodules work tree so far, but according to what a
>>>> "rm -r" does in the superproject they should still be around after
>>>> using "rm" on a populated submodule, right?
>>>
>>> Until we add the "precious" class, untracked and ignored files are
>>> expendable, so if a submodule working tree has no modification and
>>> only has leftover *.o files, they can be nuked as part of submodule
>>> removal, but if it has an untracked and unignored *.c file for
>>> example, the "rm" operation without "-f" should be stopped, no?
>>
>> Ok, untracked files mark the submodule modified while ignored files
>> which are not tracked won't.
>>
>> Thanks for this discussion, I'll start hacking on that.
> 
> A mild ping on seemingly stalled topic.

I'm almost there. The only thing left is to check if a nested
submodule is using a git directory. In that case I expect "rm" to
fail even when -f is used to protect the submodule's history. I
still need to find a suitable command for recursing the submodules
and doing that check.