Git Submodules Tutorial | For Beginners

[@lambertoXD]

I was looking for an answer regarding the cloning of submodules and you covered it in an incredibly clear way ! Thanks for that, great video!

[@RedhwanNacef]

You're very welcome, glad it helped! Thank you for the feedback.

[@warisulimam3440]

Simple and precise explanations, incredibly helpful. Thank you so much!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it 😊

[@isholaoluwatomisin1906]

Detailed explanation to get started with submodules. You could also use the "git submodule update --remote" to update the submodules if the changes were made by another member of your team(Not locally).

[@EddieDemon]

Biggest question mark I was left with, thanks for answering!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks for the additional information.

[@hrajabi7261]

Detailed and simple, incredibly helpful. Thanks!

[@osys7832]

I’m not a git guru but to sum up - git submodule is a fancy name for submodules, they’re essentially just git projects - any commands u can use with your own git project can be used inside the modele projects(git push pull etc) - to recursively install submodules -recursive-submodules is necessary with git pull or clone - same thing goes for the git push as well

[@RedhwanNacef]

You got it! The .gitmodules file is probably a good thing to remember too when summing up.

[@JayJay-ki4mi]

Redhwan: "This will take a few seconds" Boost: "Go grab a coffee"

[@RedhwanNacef]

😂

[@nikitakrasnytskyi]

I just want to leave feedback here. I find your way of giving a material to be of very high quality. Compared to many others on learning platforms, you can give material fast and keep the essential pieces. Like, you only cover the most vital submodule commands. Really appreciate the way you teach. Saw this video and subscribed for more.

[@thaynethetigerbarnes]

I think you helped me with a huge problem, I am trying to use strapi for my back-end and I have struggled getting it to commit in one repo I do believe this will be the fix! TY!

[@ivandimitryzyrianoff203]

Thanks for the video! It helped me solved a issue that I was struggling for a whole day

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad it helped!

[@krisculin9679]

This was a very nice beginner's look at submodules. Thank you.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad it was helpful!

[@richardbaumgartel]

For me it was a little bit confusing, that the name of the "normal repository" contains the word submodule and the submodule itself didn't. I had to wrap my head around this couple of times but could have been just me. Other then that: Great explanation!

[@BrocchiRodrigo]

I enjoyed the content! It helped me a lot with a project I'm working on with some colleagues. Very nice!

[@gregormurray314]

Thank you from a fellow scot, i am messing about with robot programming and need to share python and nodejs code between the code running on the robot and the code running on the desktop this gave me the overview i needed to realise that submodules were the elegant solution i needed. So many other options i have tried just gave me a major headache.

[@IreshDissanayakaM]

This was great! Nice explanation. Now I can start using git submodules.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks, glad it helped! 🙂

[@Quacky_Batak]

Great tutorial, concise and great explanation. Thanks for showing all the other tutorials name in this video. Earned a sub 👍

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks for the feedback and the sub. 🙂

[@erniepasveer8027]

Clear and concise. Good presentation style and technique.

[@maitreverge]

This is a precious video, thanks for clarifying this subject !

[@charan775]

best tutorial for submodule concept

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad you liked it, thanks!

[@Sunil_KumarDas]

0.75 Playback speed + focus helps.

[@RedhwanNacef]

👍🏽

[@_dinesh]

Precise and straight to the point. Thank you so much. ❣

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad you liked it 😊

[@tonyjaradev]

Also this is amazing for managing typescript between projects (I think, gonna try now) Thank you so much!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Hope it goes well! Anytime 🙂

[@alexleung842]

Best git submodules tutorial I've seen

[@danielvega646]

Neato! Amazing explanation, thanks a lot. Greetings from Colombia. Keep it up!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Hello Colombia! Glad you enjoyed it 😊

[@gpeta42]

Thank's you man 🤝, very useful

[@RedhwanNacef]

You're welcome 👍

[@theneilpowers]

Excellent tutorial. Answered all my questions and more.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks, glad it helped.

[@anuragchauhan5170]

Very well done, awesome tutorial, clean and precise :)

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks a lot!

[@juneroyd.quinimon495]

Thank you for the video tutorial, it helps me a lot! keep up

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad it helped!

[@LewisCampbellTech]

Good explanation. Last time I had to share a unit of in-house code between two projects I went with the internal NPM package, which was a bit of a nightmare to set up, deal with special keys etc etc. This would have been cleaner.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks! Yea I have done the exact same thing before, always good to better understand the alternatives. 🙂

[@l.243]

Thanks for the video, it explains the matter clearly.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad it was helpful!

[@patryktraczyk3246]

Really good explanation! Great video, thanks for it!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks, glad it was helpful!

[@baatar]

9:00 if you have cloned your git repo but need to install the submodule, the command is "git submodule update --init"

[@Squirrelies1]

Well presented, clear, and informative! Great job! Thank you. :)

[@import-ai]

Brilliant explanation. Thank you so much!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks! 🙂

[@davidkind9587]

great explanation, thanks

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thank you.

[@habibmosavi]

Very simple and clear, thanks man!

[@hussainshaik4390]

wow simple and yet all i needed

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thank you 😊

[@stephencovrig8373]

Awesome tutorial

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks!

[@lifeisbeautifu1]

Amazing, thank you!

[@aravindmuniraj-l1f]

clean and clear

[@ricardomonicat7564]

Clean and usefull explanations. Thank you!!!.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad you liked it!

[@senr4in]

This is helpful, thanks

[@iambiswajitsahoo]

Thank you very much for making this video ☺️

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thank you very much for watching 😊

[@JimmyWorld]

Excellent explanation. Thanks.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad it was helpful!

[@marmalamuc]

Your video really simplified this process for me! One question though: In other videos & articles, I've seen people say that, in order to incorporate changes from the submodule's repo, you have to run `git submodule update --remote` in the superproject repo before adding/committing/pushing. It looks like you didn't do that here, but everything worked fine. Do you know if `git submodule update --remote` is necessary?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad it helped. The reason I did not need that command here is because I updated the submodule directly from within the parent project. So there were no other changes in the remote. If for example a colleague had updated the submodule else where, my local copy would not know about that, so I would need to ensure it is updated before developing. One way to do it is with the command `git submodule update --remote`, the other would be to `cd` into the submodule repo, checkout master and just do a git pull. Hopefully that makes sense?

[@cthulhu7397]

clearly explained, thank you

[@RedhwanNacef]

You're welcome

[@Stonk5331]

Clear & Precise!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad you think so!

[@JuanPortalG]

Thanks, man!

[@RedhwanNacef]

No problem!

[@refused_hc7882]

Thanks for your time, totally helpful!

[@jimbobear1812]

This guy rocks. Thank you!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Cheers!

[@sonnix31]

Very nice, thank you

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks and you're welcome 😊

[@cerealkiller6675]

Perfect ! Thanks for this tutorial

[@matheusglauber4261]

Very good video, very helpful, tks

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks

[@joe_j]

This was really helpful .Than you

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad to hear that, thanks.

[@azharlihan]

Thanks for the explanation. Simple and I can easily understand. But how to remove submodule completely from main repository? For example, remove youtube-tutorial submodule from git-submodule-tutorial repository?

[@user-kc3gl9dj2w]

Nice explanation.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks

[@eryks2269]

Good explanation, thank you.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Blast-Forward]

Thanks for the explanation.

[@RedhwanNacef]

You're welcome!

[@androth1502]

can you make submodules out of specific folders in a repository?

[@realscreen7735]

U made some changes to the local repo and comitted them from which u got the submodule. How is git able to figure out that there are changes in the local repo when it is pointing to the remote url and not the local repo from which we got the submodule?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Good question, if you remember we have a ".gitmodules" that has a path to the submodule. This is telling git where to track the local changes. This is how it knows there are changes in the local repo. Hope that makes sense.

[@user-vs5qs2mr1y]

but if we have more than one submodule and we want to downoloaded only a specific submodule into the main repo ?

[@projetoforum7685]

Thank you so much, excellent tutorial

[@RedhwanNacef]

You're very welcome, glad you liked it.

[@MayureshKadu]

Very useful and well explained. Thanks

[@eric-ampire]

Great explanation

[@DjSeymur]

Is there a way to do this with branches in the same repository instead of two different repositories ?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Not sure, I have never thought to do that. You could always try add the path/url and see if it works?

[@MaherKheder3]

thank you for Video. question: how you can show the options in command line like in min : 14:02 ?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Anytime. I use zsh with the git plugin: github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/tree/master/plugins/git. which gives me that functionality :)

[@batfos]

Thank you

[@RedhwanNacef]

You’re welcome

[@stanislavlyu1827]

Thank you for the tutorial. I have a question, what about private submodule repo?

[@GTsurwa]

Fantastic Explanation. Many Thanks.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks, you're welcome!

[@kadiryumlu]

Should I create a seperate repo for submodule?

[@azir8930]

❤‍🔥

[@RedhwanNacef]

👌🏼

[@MohammadhosseinMalekpour]

Great, thanks man.

[@praveenkore842]

nice info brother

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks!

[@belphegor6979]

Thank you this was wery helpful

[@luizcesarmerjandepaula6067]

Nice! Thank you for the content

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks, my pleasure!

[@ashwinswain1649]

Hi, I am not able to see the submodule files i guess now i got the answer why.....thanks for that..but what if i want to undo and make it invisible again? also how can i add a version tag to the submodules and how can i use a feature branch of repo A as a submodule inside repo B so i can run a github action on B

[@RedhwanNacef]

You're welcome. I wonder if the "deinit" command is what you are looking for here? Tags would be added the same as any other repo. In terms of feature branch you can specify the branch in the .gitmodules file. Hopefully that helps!

[@danumichael2143]

Great video

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks

[@rwboshae]

Very good tutorial, thanks.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thank you and you’re welcome 😊

[@sameerakhatoon9508]

this was lit, ty sm

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad you liked it

[@mhasadi78]

Good tutorial, appreciated.

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thank you.

[@EdwinFairchild]

howcome everytime i run submodules update, i go look at my submodule and it checksout the commit (now outdated) that i originally made the project with....thought update would fetch the latest commit for me. So im finding to stay up to date I have to go checkout main from my submodule. How to I make my submodule always update to main not the commit i started my repo with

[@RedhwanNacef]

I believe submodule update will only update according to the local remote. Have you tried adding the --remote flag? That should actually fetch and update for you (making the submodule is on the main branch too).

[@fredrikwaldt194]

You know the desciprition of the video could really use a short summary of the commands, so that i dont have to look for them. Great video thou!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@CodeProps]

This was really helpful

[@RedhwanNacef]

Great to hear 😊

[@nicolasmenescardi4077]

great video. Thanks!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Glad you liked it! Thanks 😊

[@markrussell5587]

that was great thanks

[@RedhwanNacef]

You’re welcome 😊

[@michaelakin766]

Great video. Question for you. I have a git repo that I need to break into different repos with submodules. Do you know of a way to do that and keep the git history for each new repo?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks. Not sure if there is an easy way to do that, I remember hearing about a project where this was done but it was all manual with cherry picking etc. There may be some tools out there that might help with this. Good luck!

[@taylorfritz6648]

This was so helpful! I do have a question though... I made a change in my submodule repo but the change never showed up in my parent repo. Is there where I need to explicitly ask git to go update to the latest commit in that submodule?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thank you! Thats right (assuming you have committed and pushed the changes in the submodule). I usually "cd" in to the submodule from the parent repo and git pull from there, but you can also use the submodule commands from the parent directory and that should do the trick. 👍🏽

[@taylorfritz6648]

@@RedhwanNacef Thank you so much for responding! A little bit after I asked, I ended up figuring out how to pull in those changes and then push/commit those changes to the submodule as a part of the parent repo. You said it very clearly here too, to track exactly what I was doing! Thanks again! :)

[@RedhwanNacef]

Anytime 😊

[@devstefancho]

command summary git submodule add {child-repo-url} # add submodules (this will create .gitmodules) git pull --recurse-submodules # bring submodule's files git config submodule.recurse true # always --recurse-submodules git clone {parent-repo-url} # clone your parent repo which have submodules git submodule update --init # bring submodule files to this repo

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks for the summary!

[@AlexSmith-fs6ro]

Can you specify a submodule to reference a branch rather than a commit hash? The idea is to work on that submodule branch, ie new commits, push, pull/fetch, rebase. Then merge the submodule branch into, say, master. Can you specify a tag for the submodule?

[@RedhwanNacef]

I don't think you can, it will always reference a commit, however, you can specify a commit hash from a different branch. For example, you can specify a branch in the .gitmodules file and it will use the latest commit hash from the branch. You can still do the workflow you have specified, you will just need to make sure you use the right commit hash once merged. I don't you can specify a tag either, but again a tag will always be linked to a commit hash so I think you could use that commit. Hope that helps!

[@CoderHarsh]

Thanks ❤

[@vishekkumar3184]

Hi Nice explanation!!! I have one query, if we initialize a sub-module so for which branch of sub-module project it is considered in the parent project?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks! You can specify the submodule branch in the .gitmodules directory, if not it defaults to the remote HEAD (which basically means it defaults to the default branch). Hope that helps!

[@BaronFO]

Thanks

[@RedhwanNacef]

Anytime

[@BaronFO]

@@RedhwanNacef How do u handle dependencies in project with submodules? I am thinking of using Workspaces, is there any sollution u prefer?

[@karankundar7276]

Can i update multiple destination repositories with one source repository while executing some git submodules command at the source repository ?

[@RedhwanNacef]

"git submodule update --remote" might be what you are looking for?

[@Chemaclass]

Thanks a lot!

[@RedhwanNacef]

Anytime!

[@eduardojreis]

9:36 - Showing the branch in the command line prefix is very clever. How do you do that? Is that automatic? I am under anaconda, so I get to see the environment name, not the git branch name. Cheers,

[@RedhwanNacef]

I am using a shell called 'Zsh' with 'Oh My Zsh' will lets you configure/customise all of this. It's very useful.

[@dhivyadandapani7159]

Is your 'tree' command an alias? If yes, could you share the entire command for the alias?

[@RedhwanNacef]

It is an alias for the tool 'exa' (an 'ls' replacement). The command I run is 'exa -T -L 2 --icons'.

[@HelpingHands3838]

Thanks for the explanation 👍 One clarification needed... I own a repo called repo1 and it has a submodule called repo2. The repo2 has two files namely a.txt and b.txt . I want to create a new file c.txt in repo1 . I want to make sure the c.txt file should have the content of a.txt which is available under repo2 through submodule. How could I achieve this ? Any changes to a.txt in repo2 (in actual repo) also should reflect in my c.txt Hope I m not confusing... 😀

[@RedhwanNacef]

Anytime :) This depends on the tech used of course and exactly what you are trying to achieve. In general, if you need c.txt to contain content from the submodule, you could add a simple script that copies that content over. Then just run this script anytime you update the submodule. (or even a script that does both). Hope that helps, but if you are looking for something more specific let me know.

[@HelpingHands3838]

@@RedhwanNacef thanks mate 👍... that clarifies my doubt

[@judeurban1456]

Great video. I'm curious how you are displaying the options of a command inside the terminal? It's almost like a dynamic "--help" flag as you're typing out the command. Never seen this before. Is this a feature internal to PyCharm?

[@RedhwanNacef]

Thanks. This is not the IDE but the shell. I believe I was using zshell and oh my zsh at this point (I now use fish shell), if you search for those terms you should find what you are looking for.

[@user-Mark750]

Hi, it doesn't make much sense to use always the latest commit of a library. What can I do if I want to use e.g. tag V1.0 of a lib which is one of my submodules?

[@RedhwanNacef]

You can just checkout that branch/tag/commit in the submodule and make sure to commit the parent module. It will only ever update if committed so that should work fine.

[@blue_mustang_]

how do I delete a submodule created by accident??

[@RedhwanNacef]

You should just be able to remove the .gitmodules file and all the submodule files and commit. (There may be some references in the .git directory to the submodule that you need to remove too) maybe try this: git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitSubmoduleTutorial#Removal.

[@Travel-2-chill]

i am unable to access components from submodule

[@RedhwanNacef]

Any error message/repo you can share so I can try help?