Submodules

Background

A submodule is a Git tool used to manage shared repositories. It allows you to embed a shared repository as a subdirectory in a repository. You can isolate and reuse repositories, and pull latest changes from or push commits to shared repositories.

You may want to use project B (a third party repository, or a repository developed by yourself for multiple parent projects) in project A, and use them as two separate projects. Submodules allow you to clone a Git repository as a subdirectory into another Git repository while keeping commits separate.

The submodules are recorded in a file named .gitmodules, which records the information about the submodules.

[submodule "module_name"]      # Submodule name
path = file_path               # File path of the submodule in the current repository (parent repository).
url = repo_url                 # Remote repository IP address of the submodule (sub-repository).

In this case, the source code in the file_path directory is obtained from repo_url.

Using the Console

• Creating a submodule
  • Entry 1:

    You can create a submodule on the Files tab page.

    Click and select Create Submodule, as shown in the following figure.

    

  • Entry 2

    You can create a submodule in the repository settings.

    Choose Settings > Repository Management > Submodules > Create Submodule.

  • Remarks:

    You can use either of the preceding methods to Create submodule.

    Configure the following parameters and click OK.

    Table 1 Parameters of creating a sub-repository

    Parameter	Description
    Submodule	Select a repository as the submodule.
    Submodule Branch	Select the target branch of the submodule to be synchronized to the parent repository.
    Submodule Path	The storage path of the submodule in the parent repository. Use slashes (/) to separate levels, as shown in the following figure.
    Commit Message	Remarks for creating a submodule. You can find the operation in the file history.

    

    After the creation is complete, you can find the submodule (sub-repository) in the corresponding directory of the repository file list. The icon on the left of the corresponding file is .

Using the Git Client

Creating a submodule

git submodule add <repo> [<dir>] [-b <branch>] [<path>]