Werner LEMBERG wrote: > Folks, > > the default operation (a) of `bootstrap' is clear: > > 1. The `gnulib' submodule URL is in file `.gitmodules'. > 2. No special submodule entry in `.git/config'. > 3. A (submodule) clone of `gnulib' is created. > 4. All files of `gnulib' are checked out. > > If I already have a local `gnulib' git repository elsewhere (b), > step 2 is different if I reference this local repository. > > My question now is step 3 for situation (b). IMHO it would be fully > sufficient to create the clone with the `--shared' option. This saves > a lot of disk space, but `git submodule update' doesn't do this, and I > can't see an option to enforce it. > > Is this my lack of understanding of submodules or is this is a missing > feature of `git submodule update'? > > I'm using git 1.7.8.3 in case this is of importance.
Hi Werner, git-submodule's --reference option looks like it does what you want. However, balancing the repo duplication cost against the risk of error described in git-clone's --reference and --shared descriptions, so far, I have preferred to use more disk space. If you're interested in changing bootstrap to make this an option, however, I would probably use it when bootstrapping 5 or 10 projects in a just-created VM with limited disk space.
