Represent git-submodule as nested projects

We need a representation of git-submodule in repo; otherwise repo will
not sync submodules, and leave workspace in a broken state.  Of course
this will not be a problem if all projects are owned by the owner of the
manifest file, who may simply choose not to use git-submodule in all
projects.  However, this is not possible in practice because manifest
file owner is unlikely to own all upstream projects.

As git submodules are simply git repositories, it is natural to treat
them as plain repo projects that live inside a repo project.  That is,
we could use recursively declared projects to denote the is-submodule
relation of git repositories.

The behavior of repo remains the same to projects that do not have a
sub-project within.  As for parent projects, repo fetches them and their
sub-projects as normal projects, and then checks out subprojects at the
commit specified in parent's commit object.  The sub-project is fetched
at a path relative to parent project's working directory; so the path
specified in manifest file should match that of .gitmodules file.

If a submodule is not registered in repo manifest, repo will derive its
properties from itself and its parent project, which might not always be
correct.  In such cases, the subproject is called a derived subproject.

To a user, a sub-project is merely a git-submodule; so all tips of
working with a git-submodule apply here, too.  For example, you should
not run `repo sync` in a parent repository if its submodule is dirty.

Change-Id: I541e9e2ac1a70304272dbe09724572aa1004eb5c

1 files changed, 12 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/docs/manifest-format.txt b/docs/manifest-format.txt
index f499868c..a36af67c 100644
--- a/docs/manifest-format.txt
+++ b/docs/manifest-format.txt
@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ following DTD:
     <!ELEMENT manifest-server (EMPTY)>
     <!ATTLIST url              CDATA #REQUIRED>
   
-    <!ELEMENT project (annotation?)>
+    <!ELEMENT project (annotation?,
+                       project*)>
     <!ATTLIST project name     CDATA #REQUIRED>
     <!ATTLIST project path     CDATA #IMPLIED>
     <!ATTLIST project remote   IDREF #IMPLIED>
@@ -152,7 +153,10 @@ Element project
 
 One or more project elements may be specified.  Each element
 describes a single Git repository to be cloned into the repo
-client workspace.
+client workspace.  You may specify Git-submodules by creating a
+nested project.  Git-submodules will be automatically
+recognized and inherit their parent's attributes, but those
+may be overridden by an explicitly specified project element.
 
 Attribute `name`: A unique name for this project.  The project's
 name is appended onto its remote's fetch URL to generate the actual
@@ -163,7 +167,8 @@ URL to configure the Git remote with.  The URL gets formed as:
 where ${remote_fetch} is the remote's fetch attribute and
 ${project_name} is the project's name attribute.  The suffix ".git"
 is always appended as repo assumes the upstream is a forest of
-bare Git repositories.
+bare Git repositories.  If the project has a parent element, its
+name will be prefixed by the parent's.
 
 The project name must match the name Gerrit knows, if Gerrit is
 being used for code reviews.
@@ -171,6 +176,8 @@ being used for code reviews.
 Attribute `path`: An optional path relative to the top directory
 of the repo client where the Git working directory for this project
 should be placed.  If not supplied the project name is used.
+If the project has a parent element, its path will be prefixed
+by the parent's.
 
 Attribute `remote`: Name of a previously defined remote element.
 If not supplied the remote given by the default element is used.
@@ -190,6 +197,8 @@ its name:`name` and path:`path`.  E.g. for
 definition is implicitly in the following manifest groups:
 default, name:monkeys, and path:barrel-of.  If you place a project in the
 group "notdefault", it will not be automatically downloaded by repo.
+If the project has a parent element, the `name` and `path` here
+are the prefixed ones.
 
 Element annotation
 ------------------