Opposite/reverse of "git submodule absorbgitdirs"?

Question

How can I do the reverse of git submodule absorbgitdirs? I.e. move a submodule's .git information out of superproject/.git/modules/<module> and back to the superproject/path/to/<module>/.git directory?

I still want <module> to be a submodule of superproject, I just don't want <module>'s .git directory info in superproject's .git/modules directory.

Answer 1

Note that this would make superproject/path/to/<module>/ a nested Git repo, whose SHA1 would still be recorded by the parent project.

To keep the exact same state, you can copy superproject/.git/modules/<module> and rename to superproject/path/to/<module>, and rename <module>/<module> to <module>/.git.

Then you can use the git submodule deinit to remove the submodule:

mv asubmodule asubmodule_tmp
git submodule deinit -f -- a/submodule    
rm -rf .git/modules/a/submodule

# if you want to leave it in your working tree
git rm --cached asubmodule
mv asubmodule_tmp asubmodule

---

I still want to be a submodule of superprojec

Then its .git folder would be in superproject/.git/modules/<module>

submodule absorbgitdirs does not leave any choice:

If a git directory of a submodule is inside the submodule, move the git directory of the submodule into its superprojects $GIT_DIR/modules path and then connect the git directory and its working directory by setting the core.worktree and adding a .git file pointing to the git directory embedded in the superprojects git directory.

I don't see in git config any configuration that might move $GIT_DI R/modules.

absorbgitdirs was introduced in commit f6f8586 for Git 2.12 (Q4 2016)
Its tests shows it expects to use GIT_DIR/modules.

Older Git (before Git 1.7.8, Oct. 2011) had a .git directly inside the submodule folder.

---

As noted by Jeremiah Rose in the comments:

Another use case is: if you are using a Docker container to use git commands inside a submodule, where the container can't see the superproject and errors out. :(

Answer 2

I wrote a script to do this. Add this to your ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
    extract-submodules = "!gitextractsubmodules() { set -e && { if [ 0 -lt \"$#\" ]; then printf \"%s\\n\" \"$@\"; else git ls-files --stage | sed -n \"s/^160000 [a-fA-F0-9]\\+ [0-9]\\+\\s*//p\"; fi; } | { local path && while read -r path; do if [ -f \"${path}/.git\" ]; then local git_dir && git_dir=\"$(git -C \"${path}\" rev-parse --absolute-git-dir)\" && if [ -d \"${git_dir}\" ]; then printf \"%s\t%s\n\" \"${git_dir}\" \"${path}/.git\" && mv --no-target-directory --backup=simple -- \"${git_dir}\" \"${path}/.git\" && git --work-tree=\"${path}\" --git-dir=\"${path}/.git\" config --local --path --unset core.worktree && rm -f -- \"${path}/.git~\" && if 1>&- command -v attrib.exe; then MSYS2_ARG_CONV_EXCL=\"*\" attrib.exe \"+H\" \"/D\" \"${path}/.git\"; fi; fi; fi; done; }; } && gitextractsubmodules"

and then run:

git extract-submodules [<path>...]

If you run it without specifying any submodules, it will extract all of them.

---

If you want to see what the code is doing, just change

&& gitextractsubmodules

at the end to

&& type gitextractsubmodules

and then run the command without arguments to make Bash pretty-print the function body.