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From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox•com>
To: Andrew Keller <andrew@kellerfarm•com>
Cc: Henri GEIST <geist.henri@laposte•net>,
	Git List <git@vger•kernel.org>,
	Jens Lehmann <Jens.Lehmann@web•de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH/RFC] Documentation: Say that submodule clones use a separate gitdirs.
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 08:31:41 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqq61nmrrxe.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <B2A4F350-1F20-4ABA-80A6-CF244DD7FAFD@kellerfarm.com> (Andrew Keller's message of "Sun, 9 Mar 2014 19:24:04 -0400")

Andrew Keller <andrew@kellerfarm•com> writes:

> On Mar 7, 2014, at 7:50 PM, Henri GEIST wrote:
> ...
>> To give one of my project to someone else I have copied it on a USB key.
>> By a simple drag and drop with the mouse.
>> And I am quite sure I am not alone doing this way.
>> 
>> I have done those kind of things lot of time without any problem.
>> But that day 'the_project' happened to be a submodule cloned by
>> 'git submodule update' then on the USB key the $GIT_DIR of 'the_project'
>> was missing.
>> 
>> If 'man git-submodule' have made me aware of the particularities of submodules
>> clone I had write in a terminal:
>> 
>> git clone the_project /media/usb/the_project
>> 
>> Or at least I had understand what happened quicker.
>> 
>> I have nothing against also adding something in repository-layout but I am
>> pretty sure normal users never read repository-layout as it is not a command
>> they use. And it is not mentioned in most tutorials.
>
> How about something like this:
>
> "The git directory of a submodule lives inside the git directory of the parent repository instead of within the working directory."
>
> I'm not sure where to put it, though.

This is not limited to submodules.  There are multiple lower-level
mechanisms for a $path/.git to borrow the repository data from
elsewhere outside of $path and a cloned submodule uses only one of
them.  For any such $path, "cp -R $path $otherplace" will result in
an "$otherplace" that does not work as a Git repository in exactly
the same way, whether it happens to be a submodule checkout or not.

That is why I suggested to enhance description on a more general
part of the documentation that covers what a Git repository is.

  parent reply	other threads:[~2014-03-10 15:31 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-03-07  7:53 [PATCH/RFC] Documentation: Say that submodule clones use a separate gitdirs Henri GEIST
2014-03-07 21:42 ` Andrew Keller
2014-03-07 22:19   ` Junio C Hamano
2014-03-07 22:35   ` Henri GEIST
2014-03-07 23:37     ` Junio C Hamano
2014-03-08  0:50       ` Henri GEIST
2014-03-09 23:24         ` Andrew Keller
2014-03-10  7:52           ` Henri GEIST
2014-03-10 15:31           ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2014-03-10 18:22             ` Henri GEIST
2014-03-10 19:36               ` Junio C Hamano

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