Re: [PATCH 0/2] config includes, take 2

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Feb 7, 2012, 18:29 UTC
Message-ID: <20120207182953.GA32367@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vpqdq1pxt.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Tue, Feb 07, 2012 at 10:03:26AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> > But isn't "git cola" a git-config editing program?
> 
> Yes, that is really the right "rhetorical" question to ask.  It needs to
> know what it is editing, so it at least needs to be _aware_ of the
> inclusion, where each item comes from, and how to edit contents of _one_
> particular file.
> 
> And that issue is not something new that was introduced by include.path.

True, but it was made more complex. David has already dealt with the 3 sources in his code. Adding includes expands this to N sources, and his code needs to adapt. It would be nice if we could at least make the adaptation backwards-compatible and as painless as possible.

But I just see the "right" answer in a complex case needing user input that a simple call to "git config" can't provide. That is, pretending that "git config --global" is still a single file for reading and writing can get you something that _works_, but it will make a mess of the user's config. The most elegant thing to me is to expand git-cola's config editor into an N-pane editor instead of a 2-pane editor (not 3, because it doesn't make sense to edit /etc/gitconfig with it, and nor does the current version support it). People without includes wouldn't notice the difference, and people with includes might appreciate the power and flexibility.

-Peff