Re: git submodule vs GIT_WORK_TREE

Richard Hartmann [off-list ref] writes:

Mangling the email I respond to out of order.

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:53 AM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

but I
am not sure if that is too restrictive for people who for some
unknown reason want to use these environment variables to create
repositories with a strange layout.

This is exactly the point. For vcsh[1] to work, I need to set it up like this:

    richih@titanium  ~ % vcsh enter zsh
    richih@titanium [zsh] [2] (git)-[master] ~ % echo $GIT_WORK_TREE
    /home/richih
    richih@titanium [zsh] [2] (git)-[master] ~ % echo $GIT_DIR
    /home/richih/.config/vcsh/repo.d/zsh.git
    richih@titanium [zsh] [2] (git)-[master] ~ %

quoted

Declaring that a checked out submodule _must_ have its controlling
repository as ".git" at its root level, i.e. it should be accessible
without using GIT_WORK_TREE/GIT_DIR at all just like a normal Git
repository is, would be a clean way to avoid the issue altogether
and it still will allow the top-level superproject to be structured
in a funny way to require GIT_WORK_TREE/GIT_DIR to access it,

I fear this would make vcsh unable to support submodules, ever.

Then think of a workable alternative.  As it stands, I would have to
say that what vcsh tries to do with git is broken with respect to
submodules.