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Git Submodules

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Submodules

  • This is used when we want to include libraries or 3rd party code in our project repository.
  • One way of doing it is downloading the code, copying the files into the project and then commit the new files.
  • The drawbacks of the above method are:
    • We are mixing external code with your own files
    • Updating the external code is again a manual process
  • This is a common problem and the solution to this is git submodules.
  • A submodule is a git repository within a git repository.
  • It is a good practice to place the submodules in folder like lib or vendor so that they are cleanly separated from our code.
The actual contents of the submodule are not stored within our repository.
  • A parent repo only stores the submodule's remote url, local path inside the project and the checked out revision.
  • The submodule's working files are here in our project now since we want to use the libraries but they are not part of the parent repo.
  • When we clone a project with the default clone command the sub module folder remains empty.

Last updated: 2022-06-21