> We used to recurse into submodules, even if they were broken having > only an objects directory. The child process executed in the submodule > would fail though if the submodule was broken. > > This patch tightens the check upfront, such that we do not need > to spawn a child process to find out if the submodule is broken. Thanks for the clear commit message. Also mention which tests currently exercise this. > +static struct repository *get_submodule_repo_for(struct repository *r, > + const struct submodule *sub) > +{ > + struct repository *ret = xmalloc(sizeof(*ret)); > + > + if (repo_submodule_init(ret, r, sub)) { > + /* > + * No entry in .gitmodules? Technically not a submodule, > + * but historically we supported repositories that happen to be > + * in-place where a gitlink is. Keep supporting them. > + */ > + struct strbuf gitdir = STRBUF_INIT; > + strbuf_repo_worktree_path(&gitdir, r, "%s/.git", sub->path); > + if (repo_init(ret, gitdir.buf, NULL)) { > + strbuf_release(&gitdir); You should also free ret here. > + return NULL; > + } > + strbuf_release(&gitdir); > + } > + > + return ret; > +} The above is the rest of get_submodule_repo_for(), so that we can see that gitdir is indeed freed. > - if (!git_dir) > - git_dir = submodule_git_dir.buf; > - if (is_directory(git_dir)) { > + repo = get_submodule_repo_for(spf->r, submodule); > + if (repo) { > child_process_init(cp); > - cp->dir = strbuf_detach(&submodule_path, NULL); > prepare_submodule_repo_env(&cp->env_array); > + cp->dir = xstrdup(repo->worktree); Move the cp->dir one line up for a cleaner diff. [snip] > + repo_clear(repo); > + free(repo); > ret = 1; > + } else { > + /* > + * An empty directory is normal, > + * the submodule is not initialized > + */ > + if (S_ISGITLINK(ce->ce_mode) && > + !is_empty_dir(ce->name)) > + die(_("Could not access submodule '%s'"), ce->name); Previously, a failed fetch would just set spf->result = 1 (in fetch_finish()), allowing other fetches to still proceed. This sounds like a better idea to me instead of die-ing outright. (Also remember to print a warning message - since we no longer spawn a child process to try a fetch that will fail, we need to print a message ourselves.)