Re: [PATCH/RFC] ignore unknown color configuration

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Dec 12, 2009, 21:45 UTC
Message-ID: <7vzl5nn9x2.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20091212122524.GA17547@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 11 quoted lines

> When parsing the config file, if there is a value that is
> syntactically correct but unused, we generally ignore it.
> This lets non-core porcelains store arbitrary information in
> the config file, and it means that configuration files can
> be shared between new and old versions of git (the old
> versions might simply ignore certain configuration).
>
> The one exception to this is color configuration; if we
> encounter a color.{diff,branch,status}.$slot variable, we
> die if it is not one of the recognized slots (presumably as
> a safety valve for user misconfiguration).

This reminds me of the issue an earlier patch with a good intention but a horrible consequence wanted to address.

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/125925/focus=127629

> This patch loosens the check to match the rest of
> git-config; unknown color slots are simply ignored.

I am of two minds, even though I am slightly in favor than against the change.

This is a sane thing to do, as "slot" is part of the name of the variable, and we generally do not warn upon seeing a misspelled variable name (it makes it worse that "func" is not even misspelled but merely unknown to older version of git in your scenario).

On the other hand, I suspect that most people would apprecfiate if their git pointed out "diff.color.finc? What do you mean?" before they waste 30 minutes wondering why the new feature in 1.6.6 does not work for them.