Ensuring relative Git paths

Question

I've moved a Git repository (containing several submodules) to another directory on the local disk. Any git command produces the error:

fatal: Not a git repository: <absolute path to .git/modules/*>

The error is derived from absolute paths to files encoded in various places[1]. Two questions:

• Is there a Git command for fixing these paths, i.e., making them relative?[2]
• Is there a way to ensure that future Git repositories only use relative paths?[3]

Thanks!

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Notes

1. I notice that with all submodules, the .git file contains:

   gitdir: <absolute path to repository>
   

   The core.worktree parameter within each submodule (.git/modules/*/config) is set to the absolute path of that submodule.

2. I'm not looking for a shell command, rather a native Git method.

3. I'm not sure if absolute paths were created with an older version of Git, and newer that has since adopted relative paths.

Answer 1

I wrote a oneliner (bash and coreutils required) that changes any .git gitdir file into a relative path:

find -type f -name .git -exec bash -c 'f="{}"; cd $(dirname $f); echo "gitdir: $(realpath --relative-to=. $(cut -d" " -f2 .git))" > .git' \;

And if you don't like find here's one with git submodule:

git submodule foreach --recursive '[[ -f .git ]] && echo "gitdir: $(realpath --relative-to=. $(cut -d" " -f2 .git))" > .git'

Answer 2

@r3dey3 solution adapted for Windows:

git submodule foreach --recursive '[[ -f .git ]] && chmod +w .git && echo "gitdir: $(realpath --relative-to=. "$(cygpath -u "$(cut -d" " -f2 .git)")")" > .git'

Here I added:

• chmod +w .git to remove readonly attribute
• cygpath -u call to convert Windows path to Unix path