Re: [GSoC PATCH] submodule: warn on valueless active config

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 Weijie Yuan [off-list ref] wrote:

Thanks!

However, my suggestion is that it would be better to place your patch in
the main body of the email text rather than in the attachment.
Please take a look at Documentation/SubmittingPatches

And it also seems that the automated program 'b4' is unable to recognize
your patch, which may make the development process less convenient for
the developers and the maintainer.

Hi Weijie,

Thank you for the quick feedback and for pointing me to the documentation!
I apologize for using an attachment; I am still getting my mailing list workflow
configured.

Here is the patch provided inline as plain text so that `b4` can parse
it correctly:

From 08a2f244efab6e4cf21638d87a721ca664ed9433 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: tilak-raaz <redacted>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:50:11 +0530
Subject: [GSoC PATCH] submodule: warn on valueless active config

The config parser previously threw a hard error if 'submodule.active'
was provided without a value, causing commands to abort.

Swap repo_config_get_string_multi() to repo_config_get_value_multi()
to parse valueless keys safely, and emit a warning to the user rather
than crashing.

This resolves a NEEDSWORK comment in submodule.c.

Signed-off-by: tilak-raaz <redacted>
---
 submodule.c                | 16 ++++++++--------
 t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh | 11 +++++++++++
 2 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/submodule.c b/submodule.c
index 5c92575888..b709c429ba 100644
--- a/submodule.c
+++ b/submodule.c

@@ -231,11 +231,7 @@ int

option_parse_recurse_submodules_worktree_updater(const struct option
*opt,
 /*
  * Determine if a submodule has been initialized at a given 'path'
  */
-/*
- * NEEDSWORK: Emit a warning if submodule.active exists, but is valueless,
- * ie, the config looks like: "[submodule] active\n".
- * Since that is an invalid pathspec, we should inform the user.
- */
+
 int is_tree_submodule_active(struct repository *repo,
      const struct object_id *treeish_name,
      const char *path)

@@ -261,14 +257,18 @@ int is_tree_submodule_active(struct repository *repo,
  free(key);

  /* submodule.active is set */
- if (!repo_config_get_string_multi(repo, "submodule.active", &sl)) {
+ if (!repo_config_get_value_multi(repo, "submodule.active", &sl)) {
  struct pathspec ps;
  struct strvec args = STRVEC_INIT;
  const struct string_list_item *item;

  for_each_string_list_item(item, sl) {
- strvec_push(&args, item->string);
- }
+                if (!item->string) {
+                        warning(_("submodule.active is present but

has no value"));
+                        continue;
+                }
+                strvec_push(&args, item->string);
+        }

  parse_pathspec(&ps, 0, 0, NULL, args.v);
  ret = match_pathspec(repo->index, &ps, path, strlen(path), 0, NULL, 1);

diff --git a/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh b/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh
index eefdecb0bd..afc62ffa0b 100755
--- a/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh
+++ b/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh

@@ -1549,4 +1549,15 @@ test_expect_success 'submodule add fails when

name is reused' '
  )
 '

+
+test_expect_success 'warn on valueless submodule.active' '
+        test_when_finished "rm -rf empty-active" &&
+        git init empty-active &&
+        test_commit -C empty-active initial &&
+        git -c protocol.file.allow=always -C empty-active submodule
add ../empty-active sub &&
+        git -C empty-active config --unset submodule.sub.active &&
+        printf "[submodule]\n\tactive\n" >>empty-active/.git/config &&
+        git -C empty-active submodule status 2>err &&
+        grep "submodule.active is present but has no value" err
+'
 test_done
-- 
2.50.1 (Apple Git-155)


On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 11:26 PM Weijie Yuan [off-list ref] wrote:

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 11:07:29PM +0530, Tilak Raaz wrote:

quoted

Hi everyone,

My name is Tilak  (he/him), and I am a second-year Electronics and
Instrumentation Engineering student at NIT Rourkela. I am preparing to
apply for GSoC 2027 and am starting my contributions to Git.

Regarding my background with Git: I have built Git from source,
successfully
navigated the codebase, and tackled the NEEDSWORK comment regarding
valueless 'submodule.active' configurations in submodule.c.

Below is my microproject patch resolving this issue by switching from
repo_config_get_string_multi() to repo_config_get_value_multi() and
adding an automated test case in t7400-submodule-basic.sh.

I look forward to your feedback!

Thanks!

However, my suggestion is that it would be better to place your patch in
the main body of the email text rather than in the attachment.
Please take a look at Documentation/SubmittingPatches [[attachment]]

And it also seems that the automated program 'b4' is unable to recognize
your patch, which may make the development process less convenient for
the developers and the maintainer.

$ b4 am https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABB4Jh3UUXvmAJpefaiP-xVRQfGRdTF2jW8GkdhbA1BXe6Okdw@mail.gmail.com/ (local)
Looking up CABB4Jh3UUXvmAJpefaiP-xVRQfGRdTF2jW8GkdhbA1BXe6Okdw@mail.gmail.com
Analyzing 1 messages in the thread
No patches found.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks.