Re: Problem: staging of an alternative repository

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 30, 2014, 21:35 UTC
Message-ID: <20140430213545.GV9218@google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAKpPgveXqraM4bXb499mJm5Ls+EinihfEJ6VgOFikC0_Qp8iTA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Pavel,

Pasha Bolokhov wrote:

>     It turns out Git treats the directory '.git' differently enough
> from everything else. That may be ok,

Yeah, it's intended.

[...]

>     if you supply a different repository base name, say, '.git_new',
> by either setting GIT_DIR or using the '--git-dir' option, Git 'add'
> will not make any exception for it and think of it as a new (weird)
> directory.

Yep, a git repository metadata directory named .git_new is not special in any way and you can use "git add" to track it if you want (for example to add a testcase).

[...]

Show 5 quoted lines

>     Now I know, the '--git-dir' option may usually be meant to use
> when the repository is somewhere outside of the work tree, and such a
> problem would not arise. And even if it is inside, sure enough, you
> can add this '.git_new' to the ignores or excludes. But is this really
> what you expect?

I think it's more that it never came up. Excluding the current $GIT_DIR from what "git add" can add (on top of the current rule of excluding all instances of ".git") seems like a sensible change, assuming it can be done without hurting the code too much. ;-)

But as you note, you are not using $GIT_DIR the way it was intended to be used.

Thanks and hope that helps, Jonathan