gitmodules(5) states that submodule.$name.update should be defined in .gitmodules. However in cmd_update() in git-submodule.sh, git config is used with "-f .gitmodules". Consequently this flag is only respected in .git/config Tested against: 1.8.2.1 [sorry! I've checked the relevant bit of source and it's the same] Steps to reproduce: $ git init $ git submodule add -b master someproject $ git config -f .gitmodules --add submodule.someproject.update merge $ # Go to someproject and commit something $ git submodule update --remote The latter does not perform a merge, and behaviour is visibly different to adding --merge. I would submit a patch but I'm not completely sure what the behaviour would be - simply adding "-f .gitmodules" would hurt users that have adopted the practice of specifying their update preference in .git/config. Perhaps the right thing to do is read from .git/config and fall back to .gitmodules using get_submodule_config(). Cheers, Charlie -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html