What is the current way to remove a git submodule?

Question

as of git version 1.9.3 (Apple Git-50) on mac how do i remove a git submodule? I am reading alot of outdated information with many developers telling me they wont work. Wh

Answer 1

I'm using Git version 2.16.2 and git rm does the job mostly well:

git rm path-to-submodule

You can verify with git status and git diff --cached that this deinitializes the submodule and modifies .gitmodules automatically. As always, you need to commit the change.

However, even though the submodule is removed from source control, .git/modules/path-to-submodule still contains the submodule repository and .git/config contains its URL, so you still have to remove those manually:

git config --remove-section submodule.path-to-submodule
rm -rf .git/modules/path-to-submodule

Keeping the submodule repository and configuration is intentional so that you can undo the removal with e.g. git reset --hard.

Answer 2

You have the git submodule deinit

git submodule deinit <asubmodule>    
git rm <asubmodule>
# Note: asubmodule (no trailing slash)
# or, if you want to leave it in your working tree
git rm --cached <asubmodule>
rm -rf .git/modules/<asubmodule>

---

deinit

Un-register the given submodules, i.e. remove the whole submodule.$name
section from .git/config together with their work tree.

Further calls to git submodule update, git submodule foreach and git submodule sync will skip any unregistered submodules until they are initialized again, so use this command if you don’t want to have a local checkout of the submodule in your work tree anymore.

If you really want to remove a submodule from the repository and commit that use git rm instead.

If --force is specified, the submodule’s work tree will be removed even if it contains local modifications.

Answer 3

How to safely remove a submodule.

(adds to https://stackoverflow.com/a/1260982/342794)

1. List and locate the submodule section in .gitmodules file. Say via terminal vi .gitmodules. Example:

   [submodule "submodules/afnetworking"]
       path = submodules/afnetworking
       url = https://github.com/CompanyName/afnetworking.git
   

2. Submodules can be used with local forks. For a long running projects, code may differ from original repo and might have some fixes. It's a good idea to verify if submodule code went through changes over the course of project. Example: Look at the logs, if it's pointing to master branch or some local branch. exploring git logs to find modifications that were done via terminal. typically these are stored under a directory, my example, under submodules directory.

   User$ cd submodules/afnetworking
   User$ git log
   

3. Remove the submodule section from .gitmodules, save the file. Example: git status should show only following as modified

   modified:   .gitmodules
   

4. Stage the changes with git add .gitmodules.

5. List and locate the submodule section in .git/config files. Say via terminal vi .git/config. Example:

   [submodule "submodules/afnetworking"]
       url = https://github.com/CompanyName/afnetworking.git
   

6. Remove the git cache sobmodule files. running git rm --cached submodules/afnetworking (no trailing slash) would remove it successfully. Example:

   User$ git rm --cached submodules/afnetworking
   rm 'submodules/afnetworking'    <-- terminal output
   

7. Remove the submodule files under .git directory with rm -rf .git/modules/.... Confirm it with git status afterwards.

   User$ rm -rf .git/modules/submodules/afnetworking/
   User$ git status
   On branch feature/replace-afnetworking-submodule-with-pod
   Changes to be committed:
     (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
       modified:   .gitmodules
       deleted:    submodules/afnetworking
   Untracked files:
     (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
       submodules/afnetworking/
   

8. Commit the changes. Confirm with git status afterwards.

   User$ git commit -m "Remove submodule afnetworking"
   [feature/replace-afnetworking-submodule-with-pod 70e239222] Remove submodule afnetworking
   2 files changed, 4 deletions(-)
     delete mode 160000 submodules/afnetworking
   User$ git status
   On branch feature/replace-afnetworking-submodule-with-pod
   Untracked files:
     (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
       submodules/afnetworking/
   nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
   

9. Delete the untracked submodule files.

   User$ rm -rf submodules/afnetworking
   

10. Delete the references from Xcode project. Build, fix compile and runtime issues.