v3: Thanks to Junios critial questions regarding the design, I took a step back to look at the bigger picture. --super-reference sounds confusing. (what is the super referring to?) So drop that approach. Instead we'll compute where the reference might be in the superproject scope and ask the submodule clone operation to consider an optional reference. If the referenced alternate is not there, we'll just warn about it and carry on. * fixed the style in patch 2. * fixed another bug in the last patch, that is unrelated, but would have helped me a lot. Thanks, Stefan Documentation/git-clone.txt | 9 ++++++++- builtin/clone.c | 36 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------- builtin/submodule--helper.c | 105 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------- git-submodule.sh | 2 +- t/t7408-submodule-reference.sh | 162 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 files changed, 217 insertions(+), 97 deletions(-) v2: * fixed the p1,2 cleanups * added documentation to patches 5,6 * improved commit message in v4 Thanks, Stefan v1: Currently when cloning a superproject with --recursive and --reference only the superproject learns about its alternates. The submodules are cloned independently, which may incur lots of network costs. Assume that the reference repository has the submodules at the same paths as the to-be-cloned submodule and try to setup alternates from there. Some submodules in the referenced superproject may not be there, (they are just not initialized/cloned/checked out), which yields an error for now. In future work we may want to soften the alternate check and not die in the clone when one of the given alternates doesn't exist. patch 1,2 are modernizing style of t7408, patches 3,4 are not strictly necessary, but I think it is a good thing to not leave the submodule related C code in a crippled state (i.e. allowing only one reference). The shell code would also need this update, but it looked ugly to me, so I postpone it until more of the submodule code is written in C. Thanks, Stefan Stefan Beller (6): t7408: modernize style t7408: merge short tests, factor out testing method submodule--helper module-clone: allow multiple references submodule--helper update-clone: allow multiple references submodule update: add super-reference flag clone: reference flag is used for submodules as well builtin/clone.c | 22 ++++-- builtin/submodule--helper.c | 45 ++++++++---- git-submodule.sh | 12 +++- t/t7408-submodule-reference.sh | 153 +++++++++++++++++++++++------------------ 4 files changed, 147 insertions(+), 85 deletions(-) -- 2.9.2.572.g9d9644e.dirty -- 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