Moving submodules with Git

Question

Is there any way to move submodules within your superproject without removing them first and re-adding them ?

This was asked in 2010. The question you linked is from 2011 — rafi, Apr 30 '12 at 10:55
Sure, but the other question is also much more “popular” (e.g. it has over three times the views; it and its answers have garnered many more votes–even the accepted, identical answer). Anyway, it does not matter much since any close votes expired long ago. — Chris Johnsen, Apr 30 '12 at 22:12
This question was also asked here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4604486/how-do-i-move-an-existing-git-submodule-within-a-git-repository — 5tephenBennett, May 02 '12 at 09:48

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:56

5

It's similar to how you removing a submodule (see How do I remove a submodule?):

Edit .gitmodules and change the path of the submodule appropriately, and put it in the index with git add .gitmodules
If needed, create the parent directory of the new location of the submodule: mkdir -p new/parent
Move all content from the old to the new directory: mv -vi old/parent/submodule new/parent/submodule
Remove the old directory with git rm --cached old/parent/submodule

Looks like this for me afterwards:

# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       modified:   .gitmodules
#       renamed:    old/parent/submodule -> new/parent/submodule
#

Finally commit the changes.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:56

Community

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answered Jun 10 '11 at 18:14

Axel Beckert

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Wish there was a Git command that could all of that for you ;) – rafi Jun 23 '11 at 18:15
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These instructions don't work. – awolf Oct 10 '11 at 18:11
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Didn't work for me either; `new/parent/submodule` showed up as an untracked file, `old/parent/submodule` as deleted. I ended up removing & readding the submodule – wutz Nov 07 '11 at 11:48
1

You need to git add the new submodule directory. – mpe Dec 20 '11 at 02:54

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 01 '10 at 11:33

I don't think there is for now.

There is a patch in the making for a teaching "git mv" how to handle moving submodules, including how to update the .gitmodules file.
But it is not there yet.
Simply switching a remote repo for an existing submodule is simpler, but not what you want.

Moving submodules with Git

2 Answers2