Re: [RFC] git submodule purge

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 08:55:03AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Patrick Steinhardt [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

I think there should be a command that is able to remove those
dangling repositories if the following conditions are met:

- the submodule should not be initialized

- the submodule should not have an entry in .gitmodules in the
  currently checked out revision

- the submodule should not contain any commits that are not
  upstream

- the submodule should not contain other submodules that do not
  meet those conditions

I do not have a strong opinion on whether it is a good idea to make
it possible to remove the .git/modules/*, but should it be a
separate subcommand, or should it be an option to the 'deinit'
subcommand?

See my response to Jonathan.

Also, how would you apply the safety to a repository without
"upstream", i.e. the authoritative copy?

Is it even possible to create a new submodule without any
upstream repository? At least `git submodule init` does not work
without a corresponding entry in .gitmodules which the user would
have needed to create himself manually. In this case one _could_
assume that the user knows what he is doing and expect him not to
call `submodule purge` (or whatever the command will be called)
on the authoritative copy. Other than that I've got no idea how
to assure safety.

Regards
Patrick