Re: .git ignored regardless of --git-dir value

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 18, 2011, 22:47 UTC
Message-ID: <7v7h2xjbf4.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vsjlljf57.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Shawn Ferris <shawn.ferris@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Is it expected behavior to have the .git directory ignored, even after
>> specifying an alternate location with --git-dir? For example:
>>
>> $ git --git-dir=.foo init
>> Initialized empty Git repository in /home/sferris/work/t/.foo/
>
> GIT_DIR and --git-dir are meant to refer to a different .git dir (or a
> bare-looking repository) located elsewhere, and not for a random pathname
> like ".foo". No matter what, ".git/" anywhere is ignored from very early
> days of Git, as Linus himself writes in the source, e.g. 8695c8b (Add
> "show-files" command to show the list of managed (or non-managed) files.,
> 2005-04-11):
>
>  ...
>  * Also, we currently ignore all names starting with a dot.
>  * That likely will not change. 
>  ...

Sorry, but the above quote is wrong. The correct one is from 453ec4b (libify git-ls-files directory traversal, 2006-05-16), and survives to this day in dir.c:

 ...
 * Read a directory tree. We currently ignore anything but
 * directories, regular files and symlinks. That's because git
 * doesn't handle them at all yet. Maybe that will change some
 * day.
 *
 * Also, we ignore the name ".git" (even if it is not a directory).
 * That likely will not change.
 ...

In other words, originally we ignored all names starting with a dot and declared that likely will not change, but then loosened the rule to let people manage their .bashrc and friends. But ".git" is still special, and that likely will not change.