GIT-SUBMODULE(1)                                              GIT-SUBMODULE(1)



NAME
       git-submodule - Initialize, update or inspect submodules

SYNOPSIS
       git submodule [--quiet] add [-b branch] [-f|--force]
                     [--reference <repository>] [--] <repository> [<path>]
       git submodule [--quiet] status [--cached] [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]
       git submodule [--quiet] init [--] [<path>...]
       git submodule [--quiet] update [--init] [-N|--no-fetch] [--rebase]
                     [--reference <repository>] [--merge] [--recursive] [--] [<path>...]
       git submodule [--quiet] summary [--cached|--files] [--summary-limit <n>] [commit] [--] [<path>...]
       git submodule [--quiet] foreach [--recursive] <command>
       git submodule [--quiet] sync [--] [<path>...]





DESCRIPTION
       Submodules allow foreign repositories to be embedded within a dedicated
       subdirectory of the source tree, always pointed at a particular commit.


       They are not to be confused with remotes, which are meant mainly for
       branches of the same project; submodules are meant for different
       projects you would like to make part of your source tree, while the
       history of the two projects still stays completely independent and you
       cannot modify the contents of the submodule from within the main
       project. If you want to merge the project histories and want to treat
       the aggregated whole as a single project from then on, you may want to
       add a remote for the other project and use the subtree merge strategy,
       instead of treating the other project as a submodule. Directories that
       come from both projects can be cloned and checked out as a whole if you
       choose to go that route.


       Submodules are composed from a so-called gitlink tree entry in the main
       repository that refers to a particular commit object within the inner
       repository that is completely separate. A record in the .gitmodules
       file at the root of the source tree assigns a logical name to the
       submodule and describes the default URL the submodule shall be cloned
       from. The logical name can be used for overriding this URL within your
       local repository configuration (see submodule init).


       This command will manage the tree entries and contents of the
       gitmodules file for you, as well as inspect the status of your
       submodules and update them. When adding a new submodule to the tree,
       the add subcommand is to be used. However, when pulling a tree
       containing submodules, these will not be checked out by default; the
       init and update subcommands will maintain submodules checked out and at
       appropriate revision in your working tree. You can briefly inspect the
       up-to-date status of your submodules using the status subcommand and
       get a detailed overview of the difference between the index and
       checkouts using the summary subcommand.


COMMANDS
       add    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".

              This requires at least one argument: <repository>. The optional
              argument <path> is the relative location for the cloned
              submodule to exist in the superproject. If <path> is not given,
              the "humanish" part of the source repository is used ("repo" for
              "/path/to/repo.git" and "foo" for "host.xz:foo/.git").

              <repository> is the URL of the new submodule&#8217;s origin
              repository. This may be either an absolute URL, or (if it begins
              with ./ or ../), the location relative to the
              superproject&#8217;s origin repository.

              <path> is the relative location for the cloned submodule to
              exist in the superproject. If <path> does not exist, then the
              submodule is created by cloning from the named URL. If <path>
              does exist and is already a valid git repository, then this is
              added to the changeset without cloning. This second form is
              provided to ease creating a new submodule from scratch, and
              presumes the user will later push the submodule to the given
              URL.

              In either case, the given URL is recorded into .gitmodules for
              use by subsequent users cloning the superproject. If the URL is
              given relative to the superproject&#8217;s repository, the
              presumption is the superproject and submodule repositories will
              be kept together in the same relative location, and only the
              superproject&#8217;s URL needs to be provided: git-submodule
              will correctly locate the submodule using the relative URL in
              .gitmodules.


       status 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 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. This
              command is the default command for git submodule.

              If --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into
              nested submodules, and show their status as well.


       init   Initialize the submodules, i.e. register each submodule name and
              url found in .gitmodules into .git/config. The key used in
              .git/config is submodule.$name.url. 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.


       update Update the registered submodules, i.e. clone missing submodules
              and checkout the commit specified in the index of the containing
              repository. This will make the submodules HEAD be detached
              unless --rebase or --merge is specified or the key
              submodule.$name.update is set to rebase or merge.

              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.


       summary
              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&#8217;t allow
              to use the --cached option or to provide an explicit commit).


       foreach
              Evaluates an arbitrary shell command in each checked out
              submodule. The command has access to the variables $name, $path,
              $sha1 and $toplevel: $name is the name of the relevant submodule
              section in .gitmodules, $path is the name of the submodule
              directory relative to the superproject, $sha1 is the commit as
              recorded in the superproject, and $toplevel is the absolute path
              to the top-level of the superproject. 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, git submodule foreach 'echo $path `git rev-parse
              HEAD`' will show the path and currently checked out commit for
              each submodule.


       sync   Synchronizes submodules' remote URL configuration setting to the
              value specified in .gitmodules. 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&#8201;--&#8201;A" synchronizes submodule "A"
              only.


OPTIONS
       -q, --quiet
              Only print error messages.


       -b, --branch
              Branch of repository to add as submodule.


       -f, --force
              This option is only valid for add and update commands. When
              running add, allow adding an otherwise ignored submodule path.
              When running update, throw away local changes in submodules when
              switching to a different commit.


       --cached
              This option is only valid for status and summary commands. These
              commands typically use the commit found in the submodule HEAD,
              but with this option, the commit stored in the index is used
              instead.


       --files
              This option is only valid for the summary command. This command
              compares the commit in the index with that in the submodule HEAD
              when this option is used.


       -n, --summary-limit
              This option is only valid for the summary command. Limit the
              summary size (number of commits shown in total). Giving 0 will
              disable the summary; a negative number means unlimited (the
              default). This limit only applies to modified submodules. The
              size is always limited to 1 for added/deleted/typechanged
              submodules.


       -N, --no-fetch
              This option is only valid for the update command. Don&#8217;t
              fetch new objects from the remote site.


       --merge
              This option is only valid for the update command. Merge the
              commit recorded in the superproject into the current branch of
              the submodule. If this option is given, the submodule&#8217;s
              HEAD will not be detached. If a merge failure prevents this
              process, you will have to resolve the resulting conflicts within
              the submodule with the usual conflict resolution tools. If the
              key submodule.$name.update is set to merge, this option is
              implicit.


       --rebase
              This option is only valid for the update command. Rebase the
              current branch onto the commit recorded in the superproject. If
              this option is given, the submodule&#8217;s HEAD will not be
              detached. If a merge failure prevents this process, you will
              have to resolve these failures with git-rebase(1). If the key
              submodule.$name.update is set to rebase, this option is
              implicit.


       --reference <repository>
              This option is only valid for add and update commands. These
              commands sometimes need to clone a remote repository. In this
              case, this option will be passed to the git-clone(1) command.

              NOTE: Do not use this option unless you have read the note for
              git-clone(1)'s --reference and --shared options carefully.


       --recursive
              This option is only valid for foreach, update and status
              commands. Traverse submodules recursively. The operation is
              performed not only in the submodules of the current repo, but
              also in any nested submodules inside those submodules (and so
              on).


       <path>...
              Paths to submodule(s). When specified this will restrict the
              command to only operate on the submodules found at the specified
              paths. (This argument is required with add).


FILES
       When initializing submodules, a .gitmodules file in the top-level
       directory of the containing repository is used to find the url of each
       submodule. This file should be formatted in the same way as
       $GIT_DIR/config. The key to each submodule url is
       "submodule.$name.url". See gitmodules(5) for details.


GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite




                                                              GIT-SUBMODULE(1)
