Re: [PATCH] Expand ~ and ~user in core.excludesfile, commit.template

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Nov 17, 2009, 07:34 UTC
Message-ID: <20091117073426.GB4007@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <1258366060-27966-1-git-send-email-Matthieu.Moy@imag.fr>

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 11:07:40AM +0100, Matthieu Moy wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
> index d1e2120..c37b51d 100644
> --- a/Documentation/config.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/config.txt
> @@ -380,7 +380,8 @@ Common unit suffixes of 'k', 'm', or 'g' are supported.
>  core.excludesfile::
>  	In addition to '.gitignore' (per-directory) and
>  	'.git/info/exclude', git looks into this file for patterns
> -	of files which are not meant to be tracked.  See
> +	of files which are not meant to be tracked.  "~" and "~user"
> +	are expanded to the user's home directory.  See
>  	linkgit:gitignore[5].

Reading this, it is not clear to me if:

  1. "~" and "~user" are expanded to the home directory of "user", where
     "user" is the user running git

or

  2. "~" is expanded to the home directory of the user running git, and
     an arbitrary "~user" is expanded to that user's home directory.

I would expect (2), since that is how everything else works. And it seems from the code that is what you do. But something about the way it is written makes me think of (1). I also recall having this same question during the last round, so at the very least it is not me just mis-reading it once. ;)

Maybe:

  A leading path component of "~user" is expanded to the home directory
  of "user"; "~" is expanded to the home directory of the user running
  git.

would be more clear?

-Peff