7

I've read this other similar question but I feel my question is more basic:

From the git pull manpage:

git pull runs git fetch with the given parameters and calls git merge to merge the retrieved branch heads into the current branch. 

...

--[no-]recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]

This option controls if new commits of all populated submodules should be fetched and updated, too.

To keep a cloned repo without submodules up to date I have been using just git pull. From the above it seems that I just need to add --recurse-submodules to pull all submodules as well.

But if so what is the use of git submodule update --recursive or git submodule update --remote --rebase or such, which is somewhat confusing to me I'm sorry to say.

Do I need to execute any git submodule commands separately even if I do git pull --recurse-submodules? All I want is to stay in sync with the cloned repo.

jamadagni
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1 Answers1

10

Since I got no replies here I tried on the Git mailing list and here's the reply I got:

On Sun, Jun 17, 2018 at 8:41 PM Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Do I need to execute any `git submodule` commands separately even if I
> do `git pull --recurse-submodules`?

Ideally you don't need "git submodule" commands any more, the rest of git
is slowly converging to have builtin submodule functionality.

> All I want is to stay in sync with
> the cloned repo.

That should just work with "pull --recurse"

> But if so what is the use of `git submodule update --recursive` or
> `git submodule update --remote --rebase` or such, which is somewhat
> confusing to me I'm sorry to say.

The git-submodule command was the first command implemented that
dealt with submodules. In the beginning there was no "git pull --recurse"
but the only way was to run "git submodule update" to change
the state of submodules. Now there are better ways to do that, such as
the recursive pull.

Hope that helps,
Stefan
jamadagni
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