Empty Git submodule folder when repo cloned

Question

I have one repo hosted at https://github.com/aikiframework/json . On my local copy, I added a submodule using the command

git submodule add [email protected]:jcubic/json-rpc.git json-rpc

Then I did a commit and push, and the changes appear on GitHub (I can click on it). But when I clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/aikiframework/json.git

the submodule folder json-rpc is empty.

What am I missing here? Did I forget about something? Why is that folder empty?

Solution

OK I found it, needed to add --recursive when cloning the repo.

So the clone command ends up as:

git clone https://github.com/aikiframework/json.git --recursive

Note that if you forgot the --recursive flag you can do (thanks to @Amber):

git submodule update --init

Comments

[Charlie Parker]

if you forgot the --recursive flag in your git clone then you can do git submodule update --init

[jcubic]

@CharlieParker it's in accepted answer first comment.

[Amber]

Yep. You can also fetch submodules after the fact with git submodule update --init, if you already cloned but forgot --recursive.

[d4Rk]

Just faced the problem that there is a submodule on develop branch, but not yet on the master branch. When you clone the git repo using --recursive it will not find the submodule on the master branch, and you have to fetch it using Ambers comment "git submodule update --init" to get also the subomdule.

[Noitidart]

If you use git submodule update --init you will have to go to each repo and do git checkout master otherwise you'll get error You are not currently on a branch. on git pull when you try to update it to a newer version.

[borgr]

@Noitidart is there a way that doesn't do that? (after cloning the project already)

[Noitidart]

@borgr i couldn't figure it out

[Jari Turkia]

@Noitidart Thanks for the update --init hint. That does help when original clone didn't have --recursive in it and simply wanting to pull the missing submodules.

[Noitidart]

Thanks for that note @JariTurkia - I didn't know I needed that because I had forgot --recursive.