From: Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 07:19:27 GMT
Subject: GIT_DIR vs. --git-dir
Message-ID: <5060097F.9050203@drmicha.warpmail.net>

[mjg@localhost ~]$ GIT_DIR=~/.githome git rev-parse --show-toplevel
/home/mjg

[mjg@localhost ~]$ git --git-dir=~/.githome rev-parse --show-toplevel
fatal: Not a git repository: '~/.githome'

Huh? Ok, so most users probably would not try further and blame git, but:

[mjg@localhost ~]$ git --git-dir=/home/mjg/.githome rev-parse
--show-toplevel
/home/mjg

(All this is with core.worktree set to /home/mjg.)

So, while I do understand that we don't expand '~' in any of these cases
and it's only a matter of bash tilde expansion kicking in or not, we
might want to do something about it. (--git-dir=$HOME/.githome gets
expanded, as well, and --git-dir=.githome works from the appropriate cwd
only).

Michael