Uma Srinivasan <usrinivasan@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> I might suggest to update prepare_submodule_repo_env() so that the >> spawned process will *NOT* have to guess where the working tree and >> repository by exporting GIT_DIR (set to "git_dir" we discover above) >> and GIT_WORK_TREE (set to "." as cp.dir is set to the path to the >> working tree of the submodule). That would stop the "git status" to >> guess (and fooled by a corrupted dir/.git that is not a git >> repository). > > Here's where I am struggling with my lack of knowledge of git > internals and the implementation particularly in the context of how > environment variables are passed from the parent to the child process. Ah, I was primarily addressing Jacob in the latter part of my message, as he's looked at similar things in his recent topic. > Are you suggesting that we set up the child process environment array > (the "out" argument) in prepare_submodule_repo_env() to include > GIT_DIR_ENVIRONMENT and GIT_WORK_TREE_ENVIRONMENT in addition to > CONFIG_DATA_ENVIRONMENT that is there now? I was wondering if we should unconditionally stuff GIT_DIR=<the repository location for the submodule> in the cp.env_array passed to the function prepare_submodule_repo_env(). As cp.dir will be set to the submodule's working tree, there is no need to set GIT_WORK_TREE and export it, I think, although it would not hurt. After all, we _are_ going into a separate and different project's repository (that is what a submodule is), and we _know_ where its repository data (i.e. GIT_DIR) and the location of its working tree (i.e. GIT_WORK_TREE). There is no reason for the process that will work in the submodule to go through the usual "do we have .git in our $cwd that is a repository? if not how about the parent directory of $cwd? go up until we find one and that directory is the top of the working tree" discovery. More importantly, this matters when your GIT_DIR for the submodule is somehow corrupt. The discovery process would say "there is .git in $cwd but that is not a repository" and continue upwards, which likely would find the repository for the top-level superproject, which definitely is _not_ want you want to happen. And one way to avoid it is to tell the setup.c code that it should not do the discovery by being explicit.