Git: Possible to use same submodule working copy by multiple projects?

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Setting up shared dependencies as submodules is easy. The git submodule command doesn’t do it automatically, but a submodule is nothing more than a nested repository — and git doesn’t require any actual repository or its worktree to be in any particular place.

Set up a libraryXYZ repo for use as a shared submodule

# a submodule is just a repository. We're going to share this one.
git clone u://r/libraryXYZ 

# and keep its worktree right here:
( cd libraryXYZ; git config core.worktree .. )

Then, from anywhere, clone the project using the submodule and set it up to use the shared one:

git clone u://r/project1
cd project1
git submodule init
echo gitdir: path/to/shared/libraryXYZ/.git > libraryXYZ/.git

Now project1‘s libraryXYZ submodule will use the shared libraryXYZ repo and worktree.

Set up your build system to use that same worktree and you’re done. You can of course get git to tell you where those are in any given repo:

# for example to see where all a project's submodules' parts are kept
git submodule foreach git rev-parse --git-dir --show-toplevel

# or for just one:
git --git-dir=$project1/libraryXYZ/.git rev-parse --git-dir --show-toplevel

(late edit: @twalberg’s remark is worth keeping in mind, this might make it a bit too easy to do a git submodule update from one project without realizing you’ve also altered the build environment for every other project that shares dependencies.)

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