Figuring out how submodules work conceptually is quite a bumpy ride for a newcomer; the user manual helps (if one knows to actually look into it), but the reference documentation should provide good quick intro as well. This patch attempts to do that. Signed-off-by: Petr Baudis <pasky@xxxxxxx> --- Documentation/git-submodule.txt | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/git-submodule.txt b/Documentation/git-submodule.txt index 105fc2d..3413704 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-submodule.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-submodule.txt @@ -16,6 +16,24 @@ SYNOPSIS 'git submodule' [--quiet] summary [--summary-limit <n>] [commit] [--] [<path>...] +DESCRIPTION +----------- +Submodules are a special kind of tree entries which do not refer to a blob or +a directory, but to a particular tree in another repository (living at a given +URL). The tree entry describes the existence of a submodule with the given +name and the exact revision that should be used, while the location of the +repository is described in the `/.gitmodules` file. This command will manage +the tree entries and contents of this file for you, as well as inspecting the +status of your submodules and updating them. + +When adding a new submodule to the tree, the 'add' subcommand is to be used. +However, when pulling a tree containing submodules, these will not be checked +out by default; the 'init' and 'update' subcommands will maintain submodules +checked out and at appropriate revision in your working tree. You can inspect +the current status of your submodules using the 'submodule' subcommand and get +an overview of changes 'update' would perform using the 'summary' subcommand. + + COMMANDS -------- add:: -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html