How can I add a local submodule to a project without actually cloning all the files it contains? I want to avoid local duplication of project files.
I know that this kind of thing can be achieved, because when you clone a project that includes submodules, they are not cloned by default. You must do it manually:
git clone url-of-repo-containing-submodules.git git submodule init sub-mod git submodule update
Let's say I have a git repo meta project with out-source lib-sobmodule repository.
I could hack it to avoid duplicate files:
cd /path/to/metaproject git submodule add ../path/to/lib-sobmodule git commit -m "lib-sobmodule added..." git push cd .. && rm -rf meta-project git clone url-of-meta-project.git
Tadam! Lib-sobmodule files are not duplicated on my desktop. But this is not a good solution, as it exports and then imports everything to / from a remote git device ...
Is there an option or method that can interfere with cloning a local project without duplicating all the files it contains?
Disclamer: This is almost a clone question. Is there a way to git submodule add repo without cloning? . But since the answers focused on requiring 30K git submodules, they did not provide a satisfactory solution for the more common use case described here.
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