Setting up submodules

Git’s submodules allow you to embed one Git repository within another. This page explains how to set up submodules using SmartGit.

Adding Submodules

New submodules can be added to an existing Git repository as follows: In the Repositories view of the main window, select the folder into which the new submodule should be inserted. Then, from the program menu select Remote|Submodule|Add. In the wizard that shows up, specify a folder name for the new submodule and a URL pointing to the submodule’s repository. On pressing the Finish button on the wizard’s last page, SmartGit will start checking out the submodule’s contents from its repository.

Initializing and Updating Submodules

If you perform a Pull operation, e.g. by clicking on the Pull button in the main toolbar, a Pull dialog will be opened. On this dialog, you can find two submodule-related options:

• Update registered submodules
• And initialize new submodules

As indicated by their names, if these two options are enabled, SmartGit will automatically update and initialize submodules, respectively, when a Pull operation is performed. See the Git documentation on the commands git submodule update and git submodule init for more information about these two operations.