Retrospectively add --recursive to a git repo

git version-control git-submodules git-clone
kenneth picture kenneth · Nov 23, 2010 · Viewed 15.5k times · Source

If you git clone with --recursive, you can get all the git submodules too.

If I've forgotten to add this magical flag when cloning, as can happen, how do I now go and get any submodules?

Additionally, how can I set the recursive flag as a default for future clones?

Answer

Adam Dymitruk picture Adam Dymitruk · Nov 24, 2010

You can do it with this after a simple top-level clone:

git submodule update --init --recursive

I would not recommend making clone do this by default. The proper way to do this if you are using submodules aggressively for development and not just linking to 3rd party OSS libs on github that you may upgrade once in a blue moon, is to use git slave or subtree.

Hope this helps.

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