Re: git status doesn't ignore GIT_DIR directory?

From: Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com>
Date: May 23, 2015, 02:22 UTC
Message-ID: <20150523022256.GA17789@lanh>
In-Reply-To: <CAPc5daW2yTHHegPDrEWS5KiSYWZECV+AxMnewzz9ayASB1QNUw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 07:03:48PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> As far as I know, GIT_DIR was prepared as a mechanism to point at
> another .git directory that does not live inside the working tree, not
> as a mechanism to rename it to arbitrary name. E.g.
> 
>  $ git init
>  $ mv .git .svn
>  $ GIT_DIR=$(pwd)/.svn ; export GIT_DIR
> 
> is not expected to work.

This is not the first time we get this report. Perhaps we should document it.

-- 8< --
Subject: git.txt: mention the special name ".git" in GIT_DIR

Signed-off-by: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>
---

diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
index 90c5f37..91d6dd2 100644
--- a/Documentation/git.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git.txt
@@ -691,6 +691,9 @@ Git so take care if using Cogito etc.
 	specifies a path to use instead of the default `.git`
 	for the base of the repository.
 	The '--git-dir' command-line option also sets this value.
++
+Note that if GIT_DIR is set explicitly to a directory inside working
+tree, the directory name must be ".git".
 
 'GIT_WORK_TREE'::
 	Set the path to the root of the working tree.
-- 8< --