Question

I’m attempting to use some 3rd party libraries in my iOS app, as recommended by the SoundCloud API. I followed their tutorial, running git submodule add on each of the required dependencies.

However, when compiling, I had to make some tiny tweaks to the dependency projects in order to get them to link correctly – purely in the project settings.

I have never used submodules before, but from what I’ve heard, the parent repo tracks a particular commit of the submodule, right? If I want to include the little tweaks to the project files of the 3rd party libraries, so that a team member can pull it from origin, does that mean I will have to fork each of the dependencies first and commit each of the little project settings, just so that they can be included in the main repo? Or can I make “local” changes to the 3rd party libraries, and then push the main repo to origin?

This is quite frustrating, since I’m not actually changing the 3rd party libraries per se, it’s purely a setting I’ve had to change so that they work correctly with my specific project. Is there a way I can include tweaks in the main repo without forking each library in their entirety?!

Thanks!!

Answer 1

You will have to put your modifications somewhere so that others can get them. This gives you two options, both of which start with the word “fork”.

1. Fork the repo and maintain it.
2. Fork the repo and then make your changes so that everyone could benefit from them (eg, make the option you had to change into done sort of configuration parameter), then send a pull request back to the original. After it gets accepted, you can get rid of your fork, and others in your situation won’t need to do this dance.