Unable to `git submodule foreach git pull`

Question

This question is based on this thread.

My .gitmodules is at my Home

[submodule "bin"]
           path = bin
           url = git://github.com/masi/bin.git

My folder -structure at my Home:

~
|-- [drwxr-xr-x] bin          // this is the folder which I make a submodule
                              // it is also a folder where I have a Git to push my submodule's files
    | -- fileA
    ` -- folderA
    ...

I run

git submodule init    # I get no output from these commands
git submodule update          

I run

git submodule foreach git pull

I get

Entering 'bin'
fatal: Where do you want to fetch from today?
Stopping at 'bin'; script returned non-zero status.

My first assumption to fix the bug was to change path = bin to path = /Users/Masi/bin. However, this does not solve the problem.

How can you upload the content from the external repository which is a submodule in my Git?

Answer 1

This is normally the error made when there is no remote configured.
(From this thread)

It was a patch introduced to at least fixes the regression when running "git pull" in a repository initialized a long time ago that does not use the .git/config file to specify where my remote repositories are.

a better message would probably be something like:

No default remote is configured for your current branch, and the default remote "origin" is not configured, either.

I think the message missed being made user-friendly in earlier passes due to being inaccessible at the time.

---

So this message indicates the remote repo mentioned in .git/modules is not declared in .git/config

From git submodule

Submodules are not to be confused with remotes, which are meant mainly for branches of the same project;
submodules are meant for different projects you would like to make part of your source tree, while the history of the two projects still stays completely independent, and you cannot modify the contents of the submodule from within the main project.

I believe you may have missed the step of git submodule init:

submodule init

Initialize the submodules, i.e. register each submodule name and url found in .gitmodules into .git/config.
The key used in .git/config is submodule.$name.url.
This command does not alter existing information in .git/config.
You can then customize the submodule clone URLs in .git/config for your local setup and proceed to git submodule update; you can also just use git submodule update --init without the explicit init step if you do not intend to customize any submodule locations.

If your remote repo (declared in .git/modules) is adequately referenced in .git/config, you should not have this error message anymore.

Before using (pullin) submodules, the steps:

git submodule init
git submodule update

remain necessary.

---

Note: Git 2.42 (Q3 2023) rewrites the description of giving a custom command to the submodule.<name>.update configuration variable.

See commit 7cebc5b (25 Jul 2023) by Petar Vutov (pvutov).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit a53e8a6, 04 Aug 2023)}

doc: highlight that .gitmodules does not support !command

^{Signed-off-by: Petar Vutov}

Bugfix for fc01a5d ("submodule update documentation: don't repeat ourselves", 2016-12-27, Git v2.12.0-rc2 -- merge).

The custom command and none options are described as sharing the same limitations, but one is allowed in .gitmodules and the other is not.

Rewrite the description for custom commands to be more precise, and make it easier for readers to notice that custom commands cannot be used in the .gitmodules file.

git submodule now includes in its man page:

It will also copy the value of submodule.$name.update, if present in the .gitmodules file, to .git/config, but (1) this command does not alter existing information in .git/config, and (2) submodule.$name.update that is set to a custom command is not copied for security reasons.

You can then customize the submodule clone URLs in .git/config