Re: [Bug] git-credential-netrc.perl is not built and is not available in `exec-path`

From: Siavash <siavash.askari.nasr@gmail.com>
Date: May 21, 2021, 10:26 UTC
Message-ID: <87zgwocri7.fsf@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <YKbJdiMNGaJAls4y@google.com>

Hi,

On 2021-05-21 01:11:26 +0430, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm missing some basic information:
> - what platform are you running on?

I'm using Arch Linux with Linux v5.12.5-arch1-1.

> - what commands did you use to install Git?

`sudo pacman -S git`

> - what are you trying to do?  That can help us with understanding the
>   problem or giving better advice tailored to the use case.  The netrc
>   credential helper is mostly meant as a demo, since libcurl supports
>   ~/.netrc on its own already.

I wanted to use `git-credential-netrc.perl` to use `.authinfo.gpg` as git credential. The `gitcredentials` manual said use: `git config --global credential-helper foo` for using credential helpers. It also mentioned that `git credential-` gets prepended to the external helpers. So I expected: `git config --global credential-helper 'netrc'` to work.

I can use it as a helper if I use an absolute path: '/usr/share/git/credential/netrc/git-credential-netrc.perl'

After looking at the `PKGBUILD` file in Arch Linux's git repository, I found out that they are not making "netrc". https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/blob/4864e39da0bc99e373f3cb728272a93d66b58cd6/trunk/PKGBUILD#L63-L64

So this is not a bug. As Jeff King mentioned as well. I should have checked the `PKGBUILD`.

The output of `git --exec-path` is `/usr/lib/git-core`. And there are other helpers there(made by Arch Linux). This is the output of `lsd /usr/lib/git-core/ | rg credential`: git-credential git-credential-cache git-credential-cache--daemon git-credential-gnome-keyring git-credential-libsecret git-credential-store

I expected the third-party helpers to be in the output of `git help -a` as mentioned in the manual. They are not in the `PATH`, but they are in git's `exec-path`. So shouldn't they be printed in the help output?