Dependency management in git repositories (using submodules) [closed]

Question

I have a rather big project with lots of dependencies. The project is stored in a git repository and the dependencies are stored in dedicated git repositories linked as submodules. The dependencies can have further dependencies (again, using git submodules).

This works well. However, if two dependencies required both a third dependency I run into trouble on updates.

A dependency graph looks like this:

[Main Repo]
  |
  |-- [ModuleA]
  |       |
  |       \-- [ModuleC]
  |
  \-- [ModuleB]
          |
          \-- [ModuleC]

Right now I update the submodule pointer in ModuleA and ModuleB. This way both modules remain self contained. However, this is a lot of work.

How is this problem usually solved in bigger projects? I am looking for best practices to approach this kind of problem.

Thanks!

Answer 1

In bigger project, what you want is keep all your dependencies on one level.

That doesn't mean that ModuleA and ModuleB don't keep their own dependency to ModuleC.

That means your current main parent repo include a dependency on ModuleC, which acts as the referent version for C.
That also allows you to detect when a dependency has to be overridden as, in your case, for one of your two submodules: the dependency to ModuleC for ModuleA or ModuleB will have to be overridden by the one to ModuleC from your main Repo.