Re: [PATCH] Set GIT_PATHNAME_PREFIX with aliases.

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: May 5, 2010, 07:01 UTC
Message-ID: <20100505070131.GA11265@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <4BE115EF.8010306@viscovery.net>

On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 08:53:35AM +0200, Johannes Sixt wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Am 5/5/2010 2:51, schrieb Jeff King:
> > On Tue, May 04, 2010 at 08:25:22PM -0400, Jared Hance wrote:
> > 
> >> The environment variable GIT_PATHNAME_PREFIX passes on the
> >> current working directory (where the git command was called from)
> >> to shell aliases (aliases that begin with "!"). This allows these
> >> shell aliases to know the directory that the git command was called
> >> from.
> > 
> > Seems like a reasonable goal, but...
> 
> Sorry, I disagree.
> [reasons why it sucks]

Yes, I agree it sucks. The problem is that this information is totally lost now for shell aliases, so you can't even do these painful things. Your alias simply doesn't have access to that information at all. I am open to better interfaces (my "reasonable" above was not a ringing endorsement, but rather "I can see why you might want to do this").

> The only way where this variable could be used in a useful manner is to
> write the alias as
> 
>    !cd "${GIT_PATHNAME_PREFIX:-.}" && { do stuff... ; }

Agreed that is the only sane thing to do with it, but...

> which is something that git should do before it invokes the alias.

Wouldn't we then be breaking existing aliases which do not expect this new behavior?

-Peff