With respect to my original problem with a corrupted .git directory under the submodule directory, I am thinking of adding the following 4 lines marked with ### to is_submodule_modified() to detect the corrupted dir and die quickly instead of forking several child processes: strbuf_addf(&buf, "%s/.git", path); git_dir = read_gitfile(buf.buf); if (!git_dir) { ### strbuf_addf(&head_ref, "%s/HEAD",buf.buf); ### if (strbuf_read_file(&temp_ref, head_ref.buf,0) < 0) { ### die("Corrupted .git dir in submodule %s", path); ###} git_dir = buf.buf; } This fixes my issue but what do you think? Is this the right way to fix it? Is there a better way? Thanks, Uma On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:13 PM, Uma Srinivasan <usrinivasan@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Ok that makes sense. Thanks much. > > Uma > > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:09 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:03 PM, Uma Srinivasan <usrinivasan@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 1:03 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> >>>> A top-level superproject can have a submodule bound at its "dir/" >>>> directory, and "dir/.git" can either be a gitfile which you can read >>>> with read_gitfile() and point into somewhere in ".git/modules/" of >>>> the top-level superproject. "dir/.git" can _ALSO_ be a fully valid >>>> Git directory. So at the top of a superproject, you could do >>>> >>>> git clone $URL ./dir2 >>>> git add dir2 >>>> >>>> to clone an independent project into dir2 directory, and add it as a >>>> new submodule. The fallback is to support such a layout. >>>> >>> Thanks for the reply. However, in this case.... >>> >>> git clone $URL ./dir2 >>> git add dir2 >>> >>> how will "dir2" get ever get registered as a submodule? >> >> With a separate invocation of "git config -f .gitmodules", of course. >> The layout to use gitfile to point into .git/modules/ is a more recent >> invention than the submodule support itself that "git add" knows about. >> The code needs to support both layout as well as it can, and that >> is what the "can we read it as gitfile? If not, that directory itself may >> be a git repository" codepath you asked about is doing.