Re: Q: rational for $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config to be "non global" or just a bug?

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 11, 2017, 22:56 UTC
Message-ID: <20171211225615.GC214273@aiede.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20171211211102.rrxqd6yscnd33efd@hopa.kiewit.dartmouth.edu>

Hi,

Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Example to show that TFM outlines precedence and --global correctly:
>
> $> grep xdg .gitconfig .config/git/config
> .gitconfig:    xdg-and-user = user
> .config/git/config: xdg = xdg
> .config/git/config: xdg-and-user = xdg
> $> git config user.xdg ; git config user.xdg-and-user
> xdg
> user

I agree, this is confusing.

Reverse engineering from source, I find that git reads the following files in sequence:

	system:
		/etc/gitconfig
	global:
		$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config
		$HOME/.gitconfig
	repo:
		$GIT_DIR/config
	commandline:
		options passed with -c or GIT_CONFIG_PARAMETERS

These terms (system, global, repo, etc) are accessible in code as current_config_scope(). I don't think there's any user-visible effect to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config and $HOME/.gitconfig both being global --- it would probably be a good cleanup to rename the scope for one of them.

I think the documentation

	~/.gitconfig
		User-specific configuration file. Also called "global"
		configuration file.

should be clarified --- e.g. it could say

	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config
	~/.gitconfig
		User-specific configuration files. Because options in
		these files are not specific to any repository, thes
		are sometimes called global configuration files.

As for "git config --global", I think the best thing would be to split it into two options: something like "git config --user" and "git config --xdg-user". That way, it is unambiguous which configuration file the user intends to inspect or modify. When a user calls "git config --global" and both files exist, it could warn that the command is ambiguous.

Thoughts?

Thanks, Jonathan