Re: [RFC] Renaming environment variables.

DB> While we're at it, it would be useful to have one for what is normally DB> ".git",...

If you mean the parent directory of ${SHA1_FILE_DIRECTORY}, and your only gripe is about git-init-db creating ".git" in the current working directory regardless of SHA1_FILE_DIRECTORY, I would agree that what git-init-db does is broken. Not that I have a suggested "right behaviour" for it, though.

However if you also mean by ".git" the directory refs/heads and friends hang underneath, then I have to disagree. That does not belong to core GIT, which always expects to run from the top level directory that has such directory directly under it, and at the same time corresponds to the tree structure the dircache describes. There is no need for the environment variable you suggest, since it always is the ".git" subdirectory of such a directory.

I once advocated GIT_WORKING_TREE to mean the current project top, which is the parent directory of ".git". The proposal was shot down (see archives [*1*]). While I still think that configuration (or your ".git" location proposal, which is essentially the equivalent) may sometimes useful, I'd rather not conflate this environment variable renames with that issue. They are pretty much independent issues.

[References] *1* http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git&m=111412959320946&w=2