From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:26:44 GMT
Subject: Re: .git ignored regardless of --git-dir value
Message-ID: <7vsjlljf57.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <CAC2kKA_PZNDg_dPjWXKeFU4ZVpMas3PubZfSgTnfCfVPuNPdsA@mail.gmail.com>

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. 
 ...