On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 2:12 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > It seems like various commands are gaining --recurse-submodules options > > taking different kinds of arguments: > > > > - clone takes --recurse-submodules=<pathspec> > > - fetch takes --recurse-submodules=<mode> > > - after this patch, diff takes --recurse-submodules=<mode> > > > > Is there a unifying principle? Can Documentation/gitsubmodules.txt > > say a word or two about what kind of argument values the user should > > expect to be accepted by these options? > > I am not sure if the above is rhetorical. The only thing such a > document can say about status-quo is that the user cannot make an > educated guess, as there is no consistency. Some take an option to > clarify which subset of submodules to act on, others take an option > to specify what variant of operation to be made on the submodules. > > In the ideal world, the users ought to be able to give these two > independently, i.e. "fetch" should be able to say "only fetch these > submodules" with pathspec while "run the fetch in all of these > submodules specified (with the pathspec) as necessary" with > "on-demand" mode, for example. > > It may mean that it is too early to add "diff --recurse-submodules" > as a synonym for "diff --submodule", before what we can do to > improve the situation for commands that already take that > "--recurse-submodules" option. Good point. So let's retreat that patch for now? Stefan
