Subject: [BUG] git submodule update is not fail safe

From: Manlio Perillo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:53:25 +0100

Hi.

My network connection at times is rather unstable, so I can experience
all sort of network problems.

Today I tried to clone the qemu repository, and then to update all
submodules.

I'm using git from a recent master (790c83 - 14 December).

This is what happened:

$ git submodule update --init pixman
Submodule 'pixman' (git://anongit.freedesktop.org/pixman) registered for
path 'pixman'
Cloning into 'pixman'...
fatal: Unable to look up anongit.freedesktop.org (port 9418) (Name or
service not known)
Clone of 'git://anongit.freedesktop.org/pixman' into submodule path
'pixman' failed

$ git submodule update --init
Submodule 'roms/SLOF' (git://git.qemu.org/SLOF.git) registered for path
'roms/SLOF'
Submodule 'roms/ipxe' (git://git.qemu.org/ipxe.git) registered for path
'roms/ipxe'
Submodule 'roms/openbios' (git://git.qemu.org/openbios.git) registered
for path 'roms/openbios'
Submodule 'roms/qemu-palcode' (git://repo.or.cz/qemu-palcode.git)
registered for path 'roms/qemu-palcode'
Submodule 'roms/seabios' (git://git.qemu.org/seabios.git/) registered
for path 'roms/seabios'
Submodule 'roms/sgabios' (git://git.qemu.org/sgabios.git) registered for
path 'roms/sgabios'
Submodule 'roms/vgabios' (git://git.qemu.org/vgabios.git/) registered
for path 'roms/vgabios'
fatal: unable to connect to anongit.freedesktop.org:
anongit.freedesktop.org[0: 131.252.210.161]: errno=Connection timed out

Unable to fetch in submodule path 'pixman'

$ git submodule update --init
fatal: Needed a single revision
Unable to find current revision in submodule path 'pixman'

The problem is easy to solve: manually remove the pixman directory;
however IMHO git submodule update should not fail this way since it may
confuse the user.

I'm sorry for not sending a patch.

Regards   Manlio