Re: feature request - have git honor nested .gitconfig files

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mar 23, 2013, 08:03 UTC
Message-ID: <20130323080341.GA29768@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20130323000628.GM12223@google.com>

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 05:06:28PM -0700, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> > I'd rather not invent a new language. It will either not be featureful
> > enough, or will end up bloated. Or both. How about something like:
> >
> >   [include]
> >        exec = "
> >          case \"$GIT_DIR\" in)
> >            */dev/*) cat ~/.config/git/dev-config ;;
> >                  *) cat ~/.config/git/nondev-config ;;
> >           esac
> >        "
> 
> Yes, an existing language like shell or lua would presumably be the
> way to go.  The scary aspect of shell is the "Prankster sets up a
> malicious configuration, asks a sysadmin to help in her repository"
> scenario.  Of course we already have that problem with command
> aliases, but if the sysadmin has perfect spelling then aliases would
> never trip, so...

And also external diff, textconv, clean/smudge filters, and I'm probably forgetting more. Oh, and hooks. There's definitely a danger to running arbitrary git commands against a maliciously constructed repo. We've tried to make upload-pack safe, so you can at least make your own safe copy to examine. We could probably do more safety checks when the running user and repo owner or not the same, but it would be quite complicated, and in practice it does not seem to be that huge a problem.

> Hopefully that's enough information for anyone interested to start and
> understand the relevant variables at play.

Yeah, I'm not planning to work on this, but I'd be happy to review patches if somebody else wants to.

-Peff