Re: [Q] would it be bad to make /etc/gitconfig runtime configurable?

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 27, 2016, 19:25 UTC
Message-ID: <20160927192539.ybooc34iodnzs2ab@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqoa39p926.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 10:05:37AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> The subject says it all.  Would it be bad if we introduce an
> environment variable, GIT_SYSTEM_CONFIG=/etc/gitconfig, that names
> an alternative location of the system-wide configuration file?
> 
> That would supersede/deprecate GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM that we
> introduced primarily so that we can run our tests without getting
> affected by the configuration that happens to be effective on the
> host that the test is being run.

I can't think of a reason it would be bad. There shouldn't be a security question, as controlling the environment already lets you run arbitrary code, override system config variables, etc.

I know when I was writing the tests for 0d44a2d (config: return configset value for current_config_ functions, 2016-05-26) I had to omit the "system" case, because we had no way of pointing at a specific file. So I do not know whether a runtime system config variable would be useful for users, but it would definitely make testing easier.

-Peff