I can suggest another solution (alternative to git-submodules) for your problem - gil (git links) tool
It allows to describe and manage complex git repositories dependencies.
Also it provides a solution to the git recursive submodules dependency problem.
Consider you have the following project dependencies:
sample git repository dependency graph
Then you can define .gitlinks
file with repositories relation description:
# Projects
CppBenchmark CppBenchmark https://github.com/chronoxor/CppBenchmark.git master
CppCommon CppCommon https://github.com/chronoxor/CppCommon.git master
CppLogging CppLogging https://github.com/chronoxor/CppLogging.git master
# Modules
Catch2 modules/Catch2 https://github.com/catchorg/Catch2.git master
cpp-optparse modules/cpp-optparse https://github.com/weisslj/cpp-optparse.git master
fmt modules/fmt https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt.git master
HdrHistogram modules/HdrHistogram https://github.com/HdrHistogram/HdrHistogram_c.git master
zlib modules/zlib https://github.com/madler/zlib.git master
# Scripts
build scripts/build https://github.com/chronoxor/CppBuildScripts.git master
cmake scripts/cmake https://github.com/chronoxor/CppCMakeScripts.git master
Each line describe git link in the following format:
- Unique name of the repository
- Relative path of the repository (started from the path of .gitlinks file)
- Git repository which will be used in git clone command
Repository branch to checkout
- Empty line or line started with # are not parsed (treated as comment).
Finally you have to update your root sample repository:
# Clone and link all git links dependencies from .gitlinks file
gil clone
gil link
# The same result with a single command
gil update
As the result you'll clone all required projects and link them to each other in a proper way.
If you want to commit all changes in some repository with all changes in child linked repositories you can do it with a single command:
gil commit -a -m "Some big update"
Pull, push commands works in a similar way:
gil pull
gil push
Gil (git links) tool supports the following commands:
usage: gil command arguments
Supported commands:
help - show this help
context - command will show the current git link context of the current directory
clone - clone all repositories that are missed in the current context
link - link all repositories that are missed in the current context
update - clone and link in a single operation
pull - pull all repositories in the current directory
push - push all repositories in the current directory
commit - commit all repositories in the current directory
More about git recursive submodules dependency problem.