Re: Feature Request: Branch-Aware Submodules

Stefan Beller [off-list ref] writes:

+cc Jacob and Lars who work with submodules as well.

On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 2:00 AM, Hedges  Alexander
[off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Right now updating a submodule in a topic branch and merging it into master
will not change the submodule index in master leading to at least two commit
for the same change (one in any active branch). This happened to me quite a few
times. To a newcomer this behavior is confusing and it leads to unnecessary
commits.

So you roughly do

    git checkout -b new-topic
    # change the submodule to point at the latest upstream version:
    git submodule update --remote <submodule-path>
    git commit -a -m "update submodule"
    git checkout master
    git merge new-topic
    # here seems to be your point of critic?
    # now the submodule pointer would still point to the latest
upstream version?

Isn't <submodule-path> subject to the usual 3-way merge when the
last step (i.e. a merge of new-topic branch into master in the
superproject) is made?  If 'master' hasn't changed <submodule-path>
since 'new-topic' forked from it, because 'new-topic' updated the
commit bound at <submodule-path>, doesn't "git merge new-topic" just
take that change as the normal "One side updated, the other did not
touch; take the update" merge?