Re: [GSoC PATCH] submodule: warn on valueless active config

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 Weijie Yuan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks!
>
> However, my suggestion is that it would be better to place your patch in
> the main body of the email text rather than in the attachment.
> Please take a look at Documentation/SubmittingPatches
>
> And it also seems that the automated program 'b4' is unable to recognize
> your patch, which may make the development process less convenient for
> the developers and the maintainer.

Hi Weijie,

Thank you for the quick feedback and for pointing me to the documentation!
I apologize for using an attachment; I am still getting my mailing list workflow
configured.

Here is the patch provided inline as plain text so that `b4` can parse
it correctly:

From 08a2f244efab6e4cf21638d87a721ca664ed9433 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: tilak-raaz <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:50:11 +0530
Subject: [GSoC PATCH] submodule: warn on valueless active config

The config parser previously threw a hard error if 'submodule.active'
was provided without a value, causing commands to abort.

Swap repo_config_get_string_multi() to repo_config_get_value_multi()
to parse valueless keys safely, and emit a warning to the user rather
than crashing.

This resolves a NEEDSWORK comment in submodule.c.

Signed-off-by: tilak-raaz <[email protected]>
---
 submodule.c                | 16 ++++++++--------
 t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh | 11 +++++++++++
 2 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/submodule.c b/submodule.c
index 5c92575888..b709c429ba 100644
--- a/submodule.c
+++ b/submodule.c
@@ -231,11 +231,7 @@ int
option_parse_recurse_submodules_worktree_updater(const struct option
*opt,
 /*
  * Determine if a submodule has been initialized at a given 'path'
  */
-/*
- * NEEDSWORK: Emit a warning if submodule.active exists, but is valueless,
- * ie, the config looks like: "[submodule] active\n".
- * Since that is an invalid pathspec, we should inform the user.
- */
+
 int is_tree_submodule_active(struct repository *repo,
      const struct object_id *treeish_name,
      const char *path)
@@ -261,14 +257,18 @@ int is_tree_submodule_active(struct repository *repo,
  free(key);

  /* submodule.active is set */
- if (!repo_config_get_string_multi(repo, "submodule.active", &sl)) {
+ if (!repo_config_get_value_multi(repo, "submodule.active", &sl)) {
  struct pathspec ps;
  struct strvec args = STRVEC_INIT;
  const struct string_list_item *item;

  for_each_string_list_item(item, sl) {
- strvec_push(&args, item->string);
- }
+                if (!item->string) {
+                        warning(_("submodule.active is present but
has no value"));
+                        continue;
+                }
+                strvec_push(&args, item->string);
+        }

  parse_pathspec(&ps, 0, 0, NULL, args.v);
  ret = match_pathspec(repo->index, &ps, path, strlen(path), 0, NULL, 1);
diff --git a/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh b/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh
index eefdecb0bd..afc62ffa0b 100755
--- a/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh
+++ b/t/t7400-submodule-basic.sh
@@ -1549,4 +1549,15 @@ test_expect_success 'submodule add fails when
name is reused' '
  )
 '

+
+test_expect_success 'warn on valueless submodule.active' '
+        test_when_finished "rm -rf empty-active" &&
+        git init empty-active &&
+        test_commit -C empty-active initial &&
+        git -c protocol.file.allow=always -C empty-active submodule
add ../empty-active sub &&
+        git -C empty-active config --unset submodule.sub.active &&
+        printf "[submodule]\n\tactive\n" >>empty-active/.git/config &&
+        git -C empty-active submodule status 2>err &&
+        grep "submodule.active is present but has no value" err
+'
 test_done
-- 
2.50.1 (Apple Git-155)


On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 11:26 PM Weijie Yuan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 11:07:29PM +0530, Tilak Raaz wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > My name is Tilak  (he/him), and I am a second-year Electronics and
> > Instrumentation Engineering student at NIT Rourkela. I am preparing to
> > apply for GSoC 2027 and am starting my contributions to Git.
> >
> > Regarding my background with Git: I have built Git from source,
> > successfully
> > navigated the codebase, and tackled the NEEDSWORK comment regarding
> > valueless 'submodule.active' configurations in submodule.c.
> >
> > Below is my microproject patch resolving this issue by switching from
> > repo_config_get_string_multi() to repo_config_get_value_multi() and
> > adding an automated test case in t7400-submodule-basic.sh.
> >
> > I look forward to your feedback!
>
> Thanks!
>
> However, my suggestion is that it would be better to place your patch in
> the main body of the email text rather than in the attachment.
> Please take a look at Documentation/SubmittingPatches [[attachment]]
>
> And it also seems that the automated program 'b4' is unable to recognize
> your patch, which may make the development process less convenient for
> the developers and the maintainer.
>
> $ b4 am https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABB4Jh3UUXvmAJpefaiP-xVRQfGRdTF2jW8GkdhbA1BXe6Okdw@mail.gmail.com/
> Looking up CABB4Jh3UUXvmAJpefaiP-xVRQfGRdTF2jW8GkdhbA1BXe6Okdw@mail.gmail.com
> Analyzing 1 messages in the thread
> No patches found.
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> Thanks.