From: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 14:16:37 GMT
Subject: [user confusion] git-config error messages
Message-ID: <20080512141636.GA29590@elte.hu>


ok, i thought i'd share this stupid little episode of user error.
I wanted to enable git-rerere:

 $ git-config --add rerere.enabled true
 could not lock config file

 #
 # Hm, do remember this option incorrectly? And what lock file?
 #

 $ git-config --add rerere.enabled=1
 key does not contain a section: --add

 #
 # What section? What key?
 #

 $ git-config --add rerere.enabled=true
 key does not contain a section: --add

 #
 # Huh? Ok, lets try strace:
 #

 $ strace -f git-config --add rerere.enabled true 2>&1 | grep \\.lock
 open(".git/config.lock", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_EXCL|O_LARGEFILE, 0666) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

 #
 # Ah, stupid me! I forgot to cd into the Git repository and it tries to 
 # access .git. And i wanted the --global option anyway. So the Git 
 # error messages led me on the completely wrong path.
 #