Re: git-dir requires work-tree; documentation improvements for working directory

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 2, 2021, 22:02 UTC
Message-ID: <5ff0ed59489bd_a76d2082f@natae.notmuch>
In-Reply-To: <CA+RLzGArUrxC-Kbng3qGpRZUrZXKZj3zD3Hcut=XrUY-i-eYAw@mail.gmail.com>

Yaroslav Nikitenko wrote:

Show 20 quoted lines

> 2021-01-02 22:12 GMT+03:00, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>:
> > Yaroslav Nikitenko wrote:
> >> I use git to manage my dotfiles with this command:
> >>
> >>     git --git-dir=/home/yaroslav/.cfg/ --work-tree=/home/yaroslav
> >
> > I do precisely the same thing.
> >
> >> When reading documentation, I noticed two issues.
> >>
> >> 1) The command doesn't work without --work-tree (even from the top
> >> level directory, which is my home directory).
> >>
> >>     [~]$ git --git-dir=/home/yaroslav/.cfg/ status
> >>     fatal: this operation must be run in a work tree
> >
> > That's weird. It works fine here (although I don't see why I would want
> > that).
> 
> BTW, how do you do that in your case?

I have an alias:

  alias config='git --git-dir=$HOME/.config/dotfiles/.git/ --work-tree=$HOME'

So, when I'm in my $HOME, I can do:

  config status

Show 10 quoted lines

> > If you remove all your configuration does it still fail?
> 
> It starts to work when I remove my .cfg/config. I've no idea why it
> happens. Here is its contents:
> 
> $ more .cfg/config
> [core]
> 	repositoryformatversion = 0
> 	filemode = true
> 	bare = true

That's the difference: my core.bare is false.

I do have a checked out work-tree because that's the only way I could get some commands to work, for example `git rebase`, even though I don't use that work-tree.

I'm not sure if it makes sense to not assume '.' is the work-tree when 'core.bare=true', but I think it does make sense, so maybe just turn that off.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras