From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mon, 28 May 2012 21:23:09 GMT
Subject: Re: Alphabetize git config --list
Message-ID: <20120528212309.GA4220@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAFus=5=cp62hpLM_Odog--Q0vER8kkT5Doqo28i-yZQyfvv4gQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 01:58:28PM -0700, Zach wrote:

> I was wondering if it would be possible to alphabetically order git
> config --list by default.
> 
> Essentially this
> $ git config --list | sort

No, it's not a good idea; the order of keys is important. For example,
this config:

  [color]
    ui = true
    ui = false

is different than this:

  [color]
    ui = false
    ui = true

While that seems like a contrived example, consider something like a
.git/config repo-specific config file overriding a user-wide
~/.gitconfig file. We do it by overwriting the old key.

There are also some "multi" values which accept multiple entries to
create a list, and the list order may be relevant (I'd have to check,
though; the only one that comes to mind is refspecs, and I don't know
that order matters there).

-Peff