How to get rid of Git submodules untracked status?

T

12

194

I can't seem to get rid of untracked content in Git's submodules. Running git status yields:

# On branch master
# Changes not staged for commit:
#   (use "git add ..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- ..." to discard changes in working directory)
#   (commit or discard the untracked or modified content in submodules)
#
#    modified:   bundle/snipmate (untracked content)
#    modified:   bundle/surround (untracked content)
#    modified:   bundle/trailing-whitespace (untracked content)
#    modified:   bundle/zencoding (untracked content)
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

Adding the --ignore-submodules parameter hides these messages; but I wonder if there's a way to get rid of this dirt in a more suitable, core-ish, manner.

Triphylite answered 26/2, 2011 at 12:2 Comment(2)

This answer: https://mcmap.net/q/14043/-gitignore-files-added-inside-git-submodules evokes more option. – Pleinair 14/1, 2012 at 19:34

Does this answer your question? Git: can I suppress listing of 'modified content'/dirty submodule entries in status, diff, etc? – Rainier 18/1, 2021 at 22:48

R

118

Since the git status reports untracked content, the actual way to have a clean status would be to go into each one of those submodules and:

add and commit the untracked contents,
or reference the untracked contents in a .gitignore specific to each module.
or you can add the same ignored content to the submodule's .git/info/exclude, as peci1 reports in the comments.
or add dirty to the submodule specification, as mentioned in ezraspectre's answer (upvoted).
```
git config -f .gitmodules submodule.<path>.ignore untracked
```
or add a global .gitignore file (often ~/.gitignore-global). Like for example .DS_Store or in my case Carthage/Build as reported by Marián Černý in the comments. See .gitginore man page:

Patterns which a user wants Git to ignore in all situations (e.g., backup or temporary files generated by the user’s editor of choice) generally go into a file specified by core.excludesFile in the user’s ~/.gitconfig. Its default value is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or empty, $HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.

Ron answered 26/2, 2011 at 12:30 Comment(8)

+1, I was about ready to scream until I found this...then realizing a .DS_Store file had been automatically created (by OS X) in one of my submodules, preventing me from committing the main project. Arg! Time to update .gitignore... – Antigua 9/9, 2011 at 19:12

Using Xcode, I've also found it useful to add *.xcuserdatad to the .gitignore-global file. This prevents git from trying to track local Xcode preferences. – Cholla 10/10, 2011 at 4:0

If you don't have push rights to the submodule then you cannot share your changes to the submodule with other users of the parent repo. @quincyglenn's solution seems to work in such a case. – Elli 31/1, 2013 at 21:1

@DrewNoakes I agree. It is just that I prefer dealing with dirty changes (by adding them to a .gitignore or adding them to source control), but not by "hiding" them with a local config option. – Ron 31/1, 2013 at 21:23

@VonC, either answer makes sense depending upon the situation and preference. I wanted to highlight the distinction here as a reference to others. BTW thanks for your many answers regarding Git here on SO -- you've helped me out many a time. – Elli 31/1, 2013 at 23:56

You can even do without both commiting and creating a .gitignore (which itself becomes untracked). Open the submodule's .git/info/exclude and add the ignore lines there (it works like a .gitignore, but is not part of the shared repository). – Quintanilla 15/12, 2014 at 21:24

@peci1 good point. I have included your comment in the answer for more visibility. – Ron 15/12, 2014 at 21:34

Sometimes you can also add those untracked contents into a global gitignore file (often ~/.gitignore-global). Like for example .DS_Store or in my case Carthage/Build. – Flamingo 18/1, 2018 at 14:31

L

184

I found this blog post to work overall. By adding the ignore = dirty option to each one of the entries in the .gitmodules file.

[submodule "zen-coding-gedit3"]
    path = zen-coding-gedit3
    url = git://github.com/leafac/zen-coding-gedit3.git
    ignore = dirty

Lapith answered 8/9, 2012 at 15:38 Comment(3)

My preferred solution, as it's easily automated. – Sandhi 26/11, 2013 at 10:52

Worth mentioning that ignore = untracked also exists, and shows modified tracked files, but not untracked files. It'd be nice if there was a global setting for this for all submodules... – Crepitate 27/11, 2015 at 4:56

Unsuprisingly, after almost a decade, the blog post link is dead. :) – Stopped 8/2, 2021 at 17:1

R

118

Since the git status reports untracked content, the actual way to have a clean status would be to go into each one of those submodules and:

add and commit the untracked contents,
or reference the untracked contents in a .gitignore specific to each module.
or you can add the same ignored content to the submodule's .git/info/exclude, as peci1 reports in the comments.
or add dirty to the submodule specification, as mentioned in ezraspectre's answer (upvoted).
```
git config -f .gitmodules submodule.<path>.ignore untracked
```
or add a global .gitignore file (often ~/.gitignore-global). Like for example .DS_Store or in my case Carthage/Build as reported by Marián Černý in the comments. See .gitginore man page: