From: Jens Lehmann <Jens.Lehmann@web.de>
To: Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>,
"git@vger.kernel.org" <git@vger.kernel.org>,
Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com>,
Heiko Voigt <hvoigt@hvoigt.net>
Subject: Re: Clarification on Submodule/Subproject naming
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2015 09:37:00 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <5614CB9C.2010701@web.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kYyagjxyV0Da3FW3zWuJ+wD=FTPvzYebV7ER4TjTnMXpg@mail.gmail.com>
Am 07.10.2015 um 00:00 schrieb Stefan Beller:
> So a discussing started in a Gerrit change [1] if we want to name it
> submodule or subproject.
> We decided to stick with the git core convention of naming it
> subproject for now.
What convention? Isn't diff output the only place where we talk
about subprojects?
> But that lead me to the question: What is the difference of a
> submodule and a subproject?
A submodule is a certain kind subproject (using a GITLINK and a
.gitmodules entry), but e.g. a GITLINK could be used by other
tooling to represent subprojects without using a .gitmodules
file. So submodules are one in-core specialization of subprojects,
the other is git subtree (which doesn't even use GITLINKs).
> As far as I can tell they are synonyms (internally also called
> GIT_LINK, but we never expose that to the users), where the term
> submodule was coined later in the game, subproject being there as the
> first term introduced in version 1.5.
>
> So is it worth to unify that same concept hiding between two names?
I doubt that, as one is a subset of the other.
> Looking through the code we cannot switch to submodule as the literal
> string "subproject"
> is used for diffs in the plumbing layer.
Exactly, we cannot change that easily because of compatibility issues.
> But getting rid of submodule is also not easy, as there is
> git-submodule.sh as a direct command.
Yup, that would confuse lots of users and break tons of scripts.
> So then there is also git subtree, which "allow subprojects to be
> included within a subdirectory of the main project, optionally
> including the subproject’s entire history." (the man page)
>
> So can I understand a subproject as either a submodule or a subtree ?
Or even some other method of embedding another repo.
> If so would it make sense to add an entry to gitglossary to state that
> subprojects are generic term for
> having some kind of structure? (a subdirectory containing independent
> stuff could be considered a
> subproject. i.e. We could make contrib/examples the historic-git subproject ?)
Better documenting that is a good idea (though I'm not sure what you
mean by making "contrib/examples the historic-git subproject").
prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-10-07 7:37 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-10-06 22:00 Clarification on Submodule/Subproject naming Stefan Beller
2015-10-06 22:05 ` Jacob Keller
2015-10-07 7:37 ` Jens Lehmann [this message]
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