As I followed the installation guide to set up saleor-platform on my system, I just copied and pasted all the series of commands required, into my terminal without even understanding what most of them meant.
The first command was
git clone https://github.com/mirumee/saleor-platform.git --recursive --jobs 3
I quite understood git clone <repo-url>, but had no idea what recursive --jobs 3 was doing there.
Though, It didn't really bother me as long as I don't get any error.
But later as I browsed through the repository on github, and clicked on a folder, it was as if I was redirected to another repo. đ˛
Immediately I went to consult Google and asked him: "Can you have a git repository in a git repository?".
And, voila! I found submodules.
This is a summary of what Submodules is:
(from this blog)
SUBMODULES
It often happens that while working on one project, you need to use another project from within it. Perhaps itâs a library that a third party developed or that youâre developing separately and using in multiple parent projects. A common issue arises in these scenarios: you want to be able to treat the two projects as separate yet still be able to use one from within the other.
Git addresses this issue using submodules. Submodules allow you to keep a Git repository as a subdirectory of another Git repository. This lets you clone another repository into your project and keep your commits separate.
Example:
Letâs say youâre working on a project called Slingshot. Youâve got code for y-shaped stick and a rubber-band.
At the same time, in another repository, youâve got another project called Rockâitâs just a generic rock library, but you think itâd be perfect for Slingshot.
You can add rock as a submodule of slingshot. In the slingshot repository:
git submodule add https://github.com/<user>/rock rock
At this point, youâll have a rock folder inside slingshot, but if you were to peek inside that folder, depending on your version of Git, you might see ⌠nothing.
Newer versions of Git will do this automatically, but older versions will require you to explicitly tell Git to download the contents of rock:
git submodule update --init --recursive
If everything looks good, you can commit this change and youâll have a rock folder in the slingshot repository with all the content from the rock repository.
On GitHub, the rock folder icon will have a little indicator showing that it is a submodule:
And clicking on the rock folder will take you over to the rock repository.
Thatâs it! Youâve embedded the rock repository inside the slingshot repository. You can interact with all the content from rock as if it were a folder inside slingshot (because it is).
On the command-line, Git commands issued from slingshot (or any of the other folders, rubber-band and y-shaped-stick) will operate on the âparent repositoryâ, slingshot, but commands you issue from the rock folder will operate on just the rock repository:
cd ~/projects/slingshot
git log # log shows commits from Project Slingshot
cd ~/projects/slingshot/rubber-band
git log # still commits from Project Slingshot
cd ~/projects/slingshot/rock
git log # commits from Rock
Joining a project using submodules:
Now, say youâre a new collaborator joining Project Slingshot. Youâd start by running git clone to download the contents of the slingshot repository. At this point, if you were to peek inside the rock folder, youâd see ⌠nothing.
Again, Git expects us to explicitly ask it to download the submoduleâs content. You can use git submodule update --init --recursive here as well, but if youâre cloning slingshot for the first time, you can use a modified clone command to ensure you download everything, including any submodules:
git clone --recursive <project url>
Submodules allow you to include or embed one or more repositories as a sub-folder inside another repository.
At the end, I was like how come nobody told me about this.
Top comments (6)
Thank you John Johson. I chanced on your article in my quest for Git repo in git repo and your article has given me clear understanding.
The good thing is, I'm writing from the future which is 2022, and so I want to add the latest update which works in git.
git submodule add nodule
= the repo you're working from's url
nodule = beomes the name of the new repo intended to be inside your repo.
This will come off as useful to any newbie like me who comes accross this article.
Grateful.
I created an account just to say thank you! A lot of guides have these convoluted explanations and I just couldn't absorb them for some reason. I read yours, even though it's a little outdated now, and finally got submodules set up and running
You're welcome. Thanks for taking the time to do so. đ
Thank you! So clear. Do you feel that adding an e-commerce site (specifically next/commerce) to my current nextjs site is an appropriate usecase for submodules?
I have not yet come across this exact usecase and would love your input. Thank you!
Thank you, I also just opened an account to say thanks!
Thank you too.