Git Update Submodules Recursively

Git Update Submodules Recursively

My project struture

ProjectA
-FrameworkA (submodule)
--Twig (submodule of FrameworkA)

How I can update submodules recursively? I already tried some git commands (on ProjectA root)

git submodule foreach git pull origin master

or

git submodule foreach --recursive git pull origin master

but cannot pull files of Twig.

1

6 Answers

git submodule update --recursive

You will also probably want to use the --init option which will make it initialize any uninitialized submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Note: in some older versions of Git, if you use the --init option, already-initialized submodules may not be updated. In that case, you should also run the command without --init option.

5

The way I use is:

git submodule update --init --recursive
git submodule foreach --recursive git fetch
git submodule foreach git merge origin master
3

As it may happens that the default branch of your submodules are not master (which happens a lot in my case), this is how I automate the full Git submodules upgrades:

git submodule init
git submodule update
git submodule foreach 'git fetch origin; git checkout $(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD); git reset --hard origin/$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD); git submodule update --recursive; git clean -dfx'
4

In recent Git (I'm using v2.15.1), the following will merge upstream submodule changes into the submodules recursively:

git submodule update --recursive --remote --merge

You may add --init to initialize any uninitialized submodules and use --rebase if you want to rebase instead of merge.

You need to commit the changes afterwards:

git add . && git commit -m 'Update submodules to latest revisions'
1

You can add the following to your Makefile:

submodule:
    git submodule update --init --recursive
    git submodule foreach 'git fetch origin; git checkout $$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD); git reset --hard origin/$$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD); git submodule update --recursive; git clean -dfx'

Then you can simple run make submodule everytime you want to update submodules.

I had one submodule causing issues (the 'fatal:...' that Sanandrea reported, above). Navigated to the submodule and used 'git clean -dfx' resolved it.

1

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James H. Sterling
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James H. Sterling

James Sterling reports on renewable energy developments, climate policy, ecological conservation, and green tech innovations around the globe.