Re: [boost] [git] How the blazes are you supposed to update all the submodules?

Subject: Re: [boost] [git] How the blazes are you supposed to update all the submodules?
From: Mostafa (mostafa_working_away_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-12-19 14:29:02

On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 08:42:54 -0800, Edward Diener  
<eldiener_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On 12/19/2013 10:27 AM, Peter A. Bigot wrote:
>> On 12/19/2013 09:05 AM, Edward Diener wrote:
>>> On 12/19/2013 8:00 AM, John Maddock wrote:
>>>> OK.... so I do a
>>>>
>>>> Git pull
>>>>
>>>> at the top level (note: using TortoiseGit), and I see lots of messages
>>>> in the log indicating which libraries have updates, and judging by the
>>>> time taken they seem to be downloaded (?), but I don't actually see  
>>>> any
>>>> changes in the libraries themselves.
>>>
>>> What are reasons for ever 'pulling' the superproject ?
>>
>> Without trying to find what it's intended to mean for Boost, in normal
>> practice this means: Update to identify the versions of each submodule
>> that are confirmed to interoperate correctly at the head of superproject
>> branch that's being pulled.
>>
>> In other words, the latest successful results of integration testing.
>>
>> "git submodule update" is subsequently required to actually change the
>> contents of the submodule working spaces to contain those versions.
>> It's probably a separate step because that makes it easier to deal with
>> conflicts in specific submodules that were locally modified.
>
> I assume "git submodule update" is done at the superproject level. But  
> as other have said, this puts everything back into detached state so  
> that one needs to checkout whatever branches one was working on before  
> again. Ugh !

I don't know if this might help, but this was mentioned before on this  
list:

http://www.vogella.com/articles/Git/article.html#submodules

"41.4. Tracking branches with submodules

  Since tracking of branches is a very common requirement, Git added the  
option to track a certain branch in its 1.8.2 release. ..."

As opposed to "41.3. Tracking commits".