Hi! René Scharfe <l.s.r@xxxxxx> writes: > Am 06.06.22 um 07:43 schrieb Steven Jonn Edlefsen: >> Git cannot commit/push a directory with a git repository in >> a sub-directory. >> >> The sub-directory with the git repository and the directories below >> are set to the “master” branch, while the directories above remain >> set to the new branch. >> >> When the top directory is committed, the sub-directory with the >> git repository appears as an empty file. >> >> Even when the subdirectory branch name is changed from master >> to the new branch and the top directory is re-commited/pushed, >> the same problem occurs. >> >> When the git repository in the sub-directory is removed, e.g. >> the .git file is removed, and top directory is committed/pushed, >> the subdirectory has all the sub-directories and files. > > This is intended behavior. A repository inside another one needs > special handling. Git provides the submodule feature for that. A > simpler alternative for some use cases is called subtree. As René described, this is intended behavior - repositories cannot contain entire repositories with `.git` inside them [1]. As far as I know, this is security feature because `.git` can contain sensitive files that you wouldn't want to clone down, e.g. .git/config can make "git" execute arbitrary code. What happened in your case is that Git noticed that the subdirectory is a repository and automatically 'sanitizes' it for you by converting it into (what is essentially) a submodule [2]. When a subdirectory is a submodule, Git stores a single commit id for the entire subdirectory - you you can no longer change individual files inside the subdirectory. To demonstrate this "single commit id" behavior, this is what happens if you tried to `git init` a subdirectory in an existing project: $ git init foo Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/chooglen/Code/repo/foo/.git/ $ git add foo error: 'foo/' does not have a commit checked out Notice the line above! We can't add `foo` because it has been converted into a (pseudo) submodule [2]. $ (cd foo && git commit -m "foo" --allow-empty) # create a commit [main (root-commit) 9e27581] foo $ git add foo warning: adding embedded git repository: foo hint: You've added another git repository inside your current repository. hint: Clones of the outer repository will not contain the contents of hint: the embedded repository and will not know how to obtain it. hint: If you meant to add a submodule, use: hint: hint: git submodule add <url> foo hint: hint: If you added this path by mistake, you can remove it from the hint: index with: hint: hint: git rm --cached foo hint: hint: See "git help submodule" for more information. $ git diff HEAD diff --git a/foo b/foo new file mode 160000 index 0000000..9e27581 --- /dev/null +++ b/foo @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Subproject commit 9e27581b9eb91c0f1699eb18a2e81d758de9209d Now that there is a commit in the subdirectory repository we can `git add` it, but only as an entire commit. We cannot just add individual files. If you truly need a repository inside of another repository. You may want to consider submodules/subtrees as René mentioned. [1] A repository can contain a "bare" repository because a bare repository does not have `.git`, but that isn`t relevant to the discussion here. [2] A submodule technically also has to have an entry in the .gitmodules file.
