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  • Jeff King's avatar
    add: warn when adding an embedded repository · 53213994
    Jeff King authored and Junio C Hamano's avatar Junio C Hamano committed
    
    
    It's an easy mistake to add a repository inside another
    repository, like:
    
      git clone $url
      git add .
    
    The resulting entry is a gitlink, but there's no matching
    .gitmodules entry. Trying to use "submodule init" (or clone
    with --recursive) doesn't do anything useful. Prior to
    v2.13, such an entry caused git-submodule to barf entirely.
    In v2.13, the entry is considered "inactive" and quietly
    ignored. Either way, no clone of your repository can do
    anything useful with the gitlink without the user manually
    adding the submodule config.
    
    In most cases, the user probably meant to either add a real
    submodule, or they forgot to put the embedded repository in
    their .gitignore file.
    
    Let's issue a warning when we see this case. There are a few
    things to note:
    
      - the warning will go in the git-add porcelain; anybody
        wanting to do low-level manipulation of the index is
        welcome to create whatever funny states they want.
    
      - we detect the case by looking for a newly added gitlink;
        updates via "git add submodule" are perfectly reasonable,
        and this avoids us having to investigate .gitmodules
        entirely
    
      - there's a command-line option to suppress the warning.
        This is needed for git-submodule itself (which adds the
        entry before adding any submodule config), but also
        provides a mechanism for other scripts doing
        submodule-like things.
    
    We could make this a hard error instead of a warning.
    However, we do add lots of sub-repos in our test suite. It's
    not _wrong_ to do so. It just creates a state where users
    may be surprised. Pointing them in the right direction with
    a gentle hint is probably the best option.
    
    There is a config knob that can disable the (long) hint. But
    I intentionally omitted a config knob to disable the warning
    entirely. Whether the warning is sensible or not is
    generally about context, not about the user's preferences.
    If there's a tool or workflow that adds gitlinks without
    matching .gitmodules, it should probably be taught about the
    new command-line option, rather than blanket-disabling the
    warning.
    
    Signed-off-by: default avatarJeff King <peff@peff.net>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarJunio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
    53213994