With no arguments, shows the status of existing submodules.
Several subcommands are available to perform operations on the
submodules.
add [-b <branch>] [-f|--force] [--name <name>] [--reference
<repository>] [--depth <depth>] [--] <repository> [<path>]
Add the given repository as a submodule at the given path to
the changeset to be committed next to the current project:
the current project is termed the "superproject".
<repository> is the URL of the new submodule's origin
repository. This may be either an absolute URL, or (if it
begins with ./ or ../), the location relative to the
superproject's default remote repository (Please note that to
specify a repository foo.git which is located right next to a
superproject bar.git, you'll have to use ../foo.git instead
of ./foo.git - as one might expect when following the rules
for relative URLs - because the evaluation of relative URLs
in Git is identical to that of relative directories).
The default remote is the remote of the remote-tracking
branch of the current branch. If no such remote-tracking
branch exists or the HEAD is detached, "origin" is assumed to
be the default remote. If the superproject doesn't have a
default remote configured the superproject is its own
authoritative upstream and the current working directory is
used instead.
The optional argument <path> is the relative location for the
cloned submodule to exist in the superproject. If <path> is
not given, the canonical part of the source repository is
used ("repo" for "/path/to/repo.git" and "foo" for
"host.xz:foo/.git"). If <path> exists and is already a valid
Git repository, then it is staged for commit without cloning.
The <path> is also used as the submodule's logical name in
its configuration entries unless --name is used to specify a
logical name.
The given URL is recorded into .gitmodules for use by
subsequent users cloning the superproject. If the URL is
given relative to the superproject's repository, the
presumption is the superproject and submodule repositories
will be kept together in the same relative location, and only
the superproject's URL needs to be provided. git-submodule
will correctly locate the submodule using the relative URL in
.gitmodules.
status [--cached] [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]
Show the status of the submodules. This will print the SHA-1
of the currently checked out commit for each submodule, along
with the submodule path and the output of git describe for
the SHA-1. Each SHA-1 will possibly be prefixed with - if the
submodule is not initialized, + if the currently checked out
submodule commit does not match the SHA-1 found in the index
of the containing repository and U if the submodule has merge
conflicts.
If --cached is specified, this command will instead print the
SHA-1 recorded in the superproject for each submodule.
If --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into
nested submodules, and show their status as well.
If you are only interested in changes of the currently
initialized submodules with respect to the commit recorded in
the index or the HEAD, git-status(1) and git-diff(1) will
provide that information too (and can also report changes to
a submodule's work tree).
init [--] [<path>...]
Initialize the submodules recorded in the index (which were
added and committed elsewhere) by setting submodule.$name.url
in .git/config. It uses the same setting from .gitmodules as
a template. If the URL is relative, it will be resolved using
the default remote. If there is no default remote, the
current repository will be assumed to be upstream.
Optional <path> arguments limit which submodules will be
initialized. If no path is specified and submodule.active has
been configured, submodules configured to be active will be
initialized, otherwise all submodules are initialized.
When present, it will also copy the value of
submodule.$name.update. This command does not alter existing
information in .git/config. You can then customize the
submodule clone URLs in .git/config for your local setup and
proceed to git submodule update; you can also just use git
submodule update --init without the explicit init step if you
do not intend to customize any submodule locations.
See the add subcommand for the definition of default remote.
deinit [-f|--force] (--all|[--] <path>...)
Unregister the given submodules, i.e. remove the whole
submodule.$name section from .git/config together with their
work tree. Further calls to git submodule update, git
submodule foreach and git submodule sync will skip any
unregistered submodules until they are initialized again, so
use this command if you don't want to have a local checkout
of the submodule in your working tree anymore.
When the command is run without pathspec, it errors out,
instead of deinit-ing everything, to prevent mistakes.
If --force is specified, the submodule's working tree will be
removed even if it contains local modifications.
If you really want to remove a submodule from the repository
and commit that use git-rm(1) instead. See gitsubmodules(7)
for removal options.
update [--init] [--remote] [-N|--no-fetch]
[--[no-]recommend-shallow] [-f|--force]
[--checkout|--rebase|--merge] [--reference <repository>] [--depth
<depth>] [--recursive] [--jobs <n>] [--[no-]single-branch] [--]
[<path>...]
Update the registered submodules to match what the
superproject expects by cloning missing submodules, fetching
missing commits in submodules and updating the working tree
of the submodules. The "updating" can be done in several ways
depending on command line options and the value of
submodule.<name>.update configuration variable. The command
line option takes precedence over the configuration variable.
If neither is given, a checkout is performed. The update
procedures supported both from the command line as well as
through the submodule.<name>.update configuration are:
checkout
the commit recorded in the superproject will be checked
out in the submodule on a detached HEAD.
If --force is specified, the submodule will be checked
out (using git checkout --force), even if the commit
specified in the index of the containing repository
already matches the commit checked out in the submodule.
rebase
the current branch of the submodule will be rebased onto
the commit recorded in the superproject.
merge
the commit recorded in the superproject will be merged
into the current branch in the submodule.
The following update procedures are only available via the
submodule.<name>.update configuration variable:
custom command
arbitrary shell command that takes a single argument (the
sha1 of the commit recorded in the superproject) is
executed. When submodule.<name>.update is set to
!command, the remainder after the exclamation mark is the
custom command.
none
the submodule is not updated.
If the submodule is not yet initialized, and you just want to
use the setting as stored in .gitmodules, you can
automatically initialize the submodule with the --init
option.
If --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into
the registered submodules, and update any nested submodules
within.
set-branch (-b|--branch) <branch> [--] <path>, set-branch
(-d|--default) [--] <path>
Sets the default remote tracking branch for the submodule.
The --branch option allows the remote branch to be specified.
The --default option removes the submodule.<name>.branch
configuration key, which causes the tracking branch to
default to the remote HEAD.
set-url [--] <path> <newurl>
Sets the URL of the specified submodule to <newurl>. Then, it
will automatically synchronize the submodule's new remote URL
configuration.
summary [--cached|--files] [(-n|--summary-limit) <n>] [commit]
[--] [<path>...]
Show commit summary between the given commit (defaults to
HEAD) and working tree/index. For a submodule in question, a
series of commits in the submodule between the given super
project commit and the index or working tree (switched by
--cached) are shown. If the option --files is given, show the
series of commits in the submodule between the index of the
super project and the working tree of the submodule (this
option doesn't allow to use the --cached option or to provide
an explicit commit).
Using the --submodule=log option with git-diff(1) will
provide that information too.
foreach [--recursive] <command>
Evaluates an arbitrary shell command in each checked out
submodule. The command has access to the variables $name,
$sm_path, $displaypath, $sha1 and $toplevel: $name is the
name of the relevant submodule section in .gitmodules,
$sm_path is the path of the submodule as recorded in the
immediate superproject, $displaypath contains the relative
path from the current working directory to the submodules
root directory, $sha1 is the commit as recorded in the
immediate superproject, and $toplevel is the absolute path to
the top-level of the immediate superproject. Note that to
avoid conflicts with $PATH on Windows, the $path variable is
now a deprecated synonym of $sm_path variable. Any submodules
defined in the superproject but not checked out are ignored
by this command. Unless given --quiet, foreach prints the
name of each submodule before evaluating the command. If
--recursive is given, submodules are traversed recursively
(i.e. the given shell command is evaluated in nested
submodules as well). A non-zero return from the command in
any submodule causes the processing to terminate. This can be
overridden by adding || : to the end of the command.
As an example, the command below will show the path and
currently checked out commit for each submodule:
git submodule foreach 'echo $sm_path `git rev-parse HEAD`'
sync [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]
Synchronizes submodules' remote URL configuration setting to
the value specified in .gitmodules. It will only affect those
submodules which already have a URL entry in .git/config
(that is the case when they are initialized or freshly
added). This is useful when submodule URLs change upstream
and you need to update your local repositories accordingly.
git submodule sync synchronizes all submodules while git
submodule sync -- A synchronizes submodule "A" only.
If --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into
the registered submodules, and sync any nested submodules
within.
absorbgitdirs
If a git directory of a submodule is inside the submodule,
move the git directory of the submodule into its
superproject's $GIT_DIR/modules path and then connect the git
directory and its working directory by setting the
core.worktree and adding a .git file pointing to the git
directory embedded in the superprojects git directory.
A repository that was cloned independently and later added as
a submodule or old setups have the submodules git directory
inside the submodule instead of embedded into the
superprojects git directory.
This command is recursive by default.
