Andrew Keller <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On Mar 7, 2014, at 7:50 PM, Henri GEIST wrote: > ... >> To give one of my project to someone else I have copied it on a USB key. >> By a simple drag and drop with the mouse. >> And I am quite sure I am not alone doing this way. >> >> I have done those kind of things lot of time without any problem. >> But that day 'the_project' happened to be a submodule cloned by >> 'git submodule update' then on the USB key the $GIT_DIR of 'the_project' >> was missing. >> >> If 'man git-submodule' have made me aware of the particularities of submodules >> clone I had write in a terminal: >> >> git clone the_project /media/usb/the_project >> >> Or at least I had understand what happened quicker. >> >> I have nothing against also adding something in repository-layout but I am >> pretty sure normal users never read repository-layout as it is not a command >> they use. And it is not mentioned in most tutorials. > > How about something like this: > > "The git directory of a submodule lives inside the git directory of the parent repository instead of within the working directory." > > I'm not sure where to put it, though. This is not limited to submodules. There are multiple lower-level mechanisms for a $path/.git to borrow the repository data from elsewhere outside of $path and a cloned submodule uses only one of them. For any such $path, "cp -R $path $otherplace" will result in an "$otherplace" that does not work as a Git repository in exactly the same way, whether it happens to be a submodule checkout or not. That is why I suggested to enhance description on a more general part of the documentation that covers what a Git repository is. -- 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