Re: [RFC/PATCHv3 4/5] gitweb: Starting work on a man page for /etc/gitweb.conf (WIP)

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jun 7, 2011, 17:00 UTC
Message-ID: <7vtyc160ha.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1307464037.12888.49.camel@drew-northup.unet.maine.edu>

Drew Northup <drew.northup@maine.edu> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> On Tue, 2011-06-07 at 08:44 -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> ...
> If this is what you are proposing then we should be working on a
> "gitweb_config.perl" manpage and not a "gitweb.conf" manpage. I know a
> fair number of people around here put priority on the former and would
> just as soon ignore the latter. That's what your proposed change says to
> me (while I also understand that your own position is likely far more
> nuanced than that).

Hmm, do you want to have two (and then three, see below) separate manpages that essentially describe the same thing, and refer to each other when they talk about the precedence order?

Show 16 quoted lines

>> >>> +*NOTE:* If per-instance configuration file ('gitweb_config.perl') exists,
>> >>> +then system-wide configuration file ('/etc/gitweb.conf') is _not used at
>> >>> +all_!!!
>> >>
>> >> Over the top. :)  I think the best way to document this is to contrast
>> >> it with /etc/gitweb-common.conf once the latter exists.
>> >
>> > If we were to change gitweb to handle configuration files like the rest
>> > of git (and in fact like most things we deal with daily, where settings
>> > are overridden one by one) then this section becomes moot. Until or
>> > unless that becomes the case it is important to loudly make note of it. 
>> 
>> Does using three exclamation marks and italics make it clearer?
>
> That could probably be cut down to one, I'll grant you that. I was
> trying to avoid use of the <blink> tag.

I vaguely recall that there was an effort to document /etc/gitweb.conf as a mere "fallback default", not a "system-wide configuration file", which is what it is, and also to introduce a true "system-wide configuration" as a separate file, so that the system-wide one will be read, and then either per-instance gitweb_config.perl or the fallback default /etc/gitweb.conf will update it. What happened to that effort?

In any case, with the current design, /etc/gitweb.conf is _not_ the system-wide configuration file but it is a fallback default for instances that do not have per-instance configuration, so the quoted part would need rewording anyway, I think.