I am using git annex export to export to a WEBDAV special remote configured with exporttree=yes. Works beautifully!
However, now I have a repository with a submodule, and I want to export them both, such that they look like a single worktree on the WEBDAV service. I can, in-principle, achieve this by using an appropriately adjusted WEBDAV URL. But git-annex exports an empty file with the name of the submodule in the location where I would need a directory to place the submodule export -- which the WEBDAV services rightfully acknowledges with a 409 (conflict) response, when I attempt running initremote on the submodule nevertheless.
I found no way to use an wanted expression to automatically exclude all submodules.
The options I am left with are:
Remove the empty submodule placeholders after an export.
Maintain a dedicated wanted expression with a continuously updated exclusion list covering all submodule mounts.
(2) Might allow me to not have to fiddle with WEBDAV requests myself, but it doesn't seem "right", given that the submodule layout and number can change with any state of the repository.
I wonder, though, what benefit the export of these placeholder files provides? Maybe they should not be exported at all. Or, alternatively, it might make sense to actually export them as directories right away. I might be biased, but that might be a more appropriate representation than an empty file.
I have used a Nextcloud instance for me attempts, and a repository with a single submodule (both created with datalad in my case, but that should not be relevant here). Followed by
git annex initremote wd type=webdav url=https://.../files/user/datalad/dummy encryption=none exporttree=yes
git annex initremote wd type=webdav url=https://.../files/user/datalad/dummy/submod encryption=none exporttree=yes
in both repositories respectively.
I have been using git-annex version: 8.20201127
Have you had any luck using git-annex before? (Sometimes we get tired of reading bug reports all day and a lil' positive end note does wonders)
It is the rock that I stand on.
I think it's simply a bug that it exports submodules at all. Very easy to forget about the special case of those wacky submodule directories in git.
Easy enough to exclude them from export, that's done.
But the other side of the coin is, importing back from there will generate a remote-tracking branch without the submodule, and merging it will result in a tree that does not include the submodule, as if it were deleted.
So, importing needs to somehow add back submodules, unless the submodule location has been overwritten with a file on the remote.
This is working now.
git-annex version: 8.20210311-gecee702b3Thx!