Set branch for all Git Submodules

Question

Is there a command to set the same branch name for all existing Git Submodules

git submodule add -b develop *

Basically I need a way to recursively set the branch for each module in the .gitmodules file.

Bustup

Answer 1

Looking for a way to recursive set the branch in the .gitmodules file

With Git 2.22 (Q2 2019, four years later), you will be able to use git submodule set-branch -b <abranch>, because git submodule learns set-branch subcommand that allows the submodule.*.branch settings to be modified.

See commit b57e811, commit c89c494 (08 Feb 2019), and commit 7a4bb55 (07 Feb 2019) by Denton Liu (Denton-L).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 01f8d78, 25 Apr 2019)}

submodule: teach set-branch subcommand

This teaches git-submodule the set-branch subcommand which allows the branch of a submodule to be set through a porcelain command without having to manually manipulate the .gitmodules file.

In your case, for all submodules, using git submodule foreach:

git submodule foreach 'git submodule set-branch --branch aBranch -- ${sm_path}'
git submodule foreach 'git submodule set-branch --default -- ${sm_path}'

(the last line set the master branch, which is the default)

---

Before Git 2.22, you would use the command I mentioned in "How can I specify a branch/tag when adding a Git submodule?"

 git submodule foreach 'git config -f .gitmodules submodule.${sm_path}.branch <branch>'

---

Note: Git 2.24 (Q4 2019) makes clear the --default and --branch options are mutually exclusive.

See commit 40e747e (16 Sep 2019) by Denton Liu (Denton-L).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 7f17913, 07 Oct 2019)}

Phosphide

how do you get ${sm_path}? Is that from foreach? When I try your command: git submodule foreach 'git submodule set-branch --branch development -- ${sm_path}' I get this error: fatal: run_command returned non-zero status for api api is one of my submodules – Knowle

@JoshuaDyck It is set by git submodule foreach: git-scm.com/docs/git-submodule#Documentation/…. What version of Git are you using? On which OS and which shell? Are you using it from the root folder of the parent repo hosting those submodules? – Phosphide

I installed the latest from git-scm.com which was 2.21. That must be it. I assumed the latest release would have it. But as you stated above it is 2.22. How would you go about getting 2.22 if git-scm.com only has 2.21? Thanks! – Knowle

@JoshuaDyck Correct. You now have the 2.22rc0 for you to test. – Phosphide

hi @Phosphide I just installed Git 2.23 in windows and have same problems as Joshua... – Ironing

@Ironing Can you try with a simple echo? I did so two days ago without issue in https://mcmap.net/q/13647/-git-add-remotes-to-submodules-recursively, as a concrete example. – Phosphide

how can I leverage the --depth 1 here ? I cant get this to work – Peebles

@MartinKosicky What version of Git are you using? And what " I cant get this to work" means? Is there an error message? – Phosphide

It seems that it still is trying to fetch master, unles i invoke git submodule update --remote . therefore the correct branch has to be upfront pulled (and --depth 1 strips that out on the first update --init) – Peebles

@Phosphide more importantly, I cannot get the right combination of operations to work to track remote branch on submodule with shallow init, I am using git submodule update --remote --init --depth 1 , but that doesnt work with --depth 1, without it it works. I have newest git i think 2.26.2 – Peebles

@MartinKosicky OK. Can you ask that as a separate question? – Phosphide

@Phosphide oki stackoverflow.com/questions/61483547/… – Peebles

Answer 2

See git submodule foreach.

Evaluates an arbitrary shell command in each checked out submodule.

git submodule foreach git checkout -b develop

Dinothere

Looking for a way to recursive set the branch in the .gitmodules file. Updated to clarify – Bustup