On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 3:36 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Stefan Beller <sbeller@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> @@ -1333,10 +1336,8 @@ int cmd_fetch(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix) >> deepen = 1; >> >> if (recurse_submodules != RECURSE_SUBMODULES_OFF) { >> - if (recurse_submodules_default) { >> - int arg = parse_fetch_recurse_submodules_arg("--recurse-submodules-default", recurse_submodules_default); >> - set_config_fetch_recurse_submodules(arg); >> - } >> + if (recurse_submodules_default != RECURSE_SUBMODULES_DEFAULT) >> + set_config_fetch_recurse_submodules(recurse_submodules_default); > > This is not a new thing, and it may not even be a problem, but I > have to wonder why this needs to be done conditionally. "The > command line did not explicitly say --no-recurse-submodules, so we > would set what came from --recurse-submodule-default if and only if > that is given---otherwise we leave it as a compiled-in default" is > what the code before or after this patch tells me. But if we drop > the "if (default is not DEFAULT)", the resulting code becomes "The > command line did not explicitly say --no-recurse-submodules, so we > would set whatever is the default (which may not have been given > from the command line, but came built-in to the binary)". Aren't > they saying the same thing? I assumed so as well, yes. But the test suite pointed out there is another subtlety going on, which I have not dug into, yet. > > It's not like there is a configuration knob that further interferes > the interaction between these two. I am puzzled. As far as I suspect, the original author considered evaluating the additional config too expensive. gitmodules_config(); // <- this specifically? git_config(submodule_config, NULL); And that is why we only react if any switch is given to recurse. Before be254a0ea9 (Add the 'fetch.recurseSubmodules' config setting, 2010-11-11) we would not load the config unless the user asked for submodule action. Then with the config switch we *had* to load the config (both .gitmodules as well as .git/config), so at that commit it would have made sense to inline this into the regular config and command line argument parsing.