Re: Q: rational for $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config to be "non global" or just a bug?

From: Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 18, 2017, 04:03 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+P7+xpFyD0zuOz7XSCc6cV1T1zu6j-gZD=EMQs-t2WPxi1EMA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20171216220120.GB6217@genre.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 2:01 PM, brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> wrote:

Show 34 quoted lines

> On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 05:05:01PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
>> > As for "git config --global", I think the best thing would be to split
>> > it into two options: something like "git config --user" and "git
>> > config --xdg-user".  That way, it is unambiguous which configuration
>> > file the user intends to inspect or modify.  When a user calls "git
>> > config --global" and both files exist, it could warn that the command
>> > is ambiguous.
>> >
>> > Thoughts?
>>
>> I actually thought that the plan was "you either have this, or the
>> other one, never both at the same time" (and I think those who
>> pushed the XDG thing in to the system made us favor it over the
>> traditional one).  So as long as --global updates the one that
>> exists, and updates XDG one when both or neither do, I think we
>> should be OK.  And from that viewpoint, we definitely do not want
>> two kinds of --global to pretend as if we support use of both at the
>> same time.
>
> Sorry for coming late to the discussion, but I actually use both.
>
> ~/.gitconfig is checked into my Git repo for my home directory and
> contains settings I preserve across all systems, and the XDG dir is not
> checked in and contains per-system settings (currently just
> commit.gpgsign).  On my main systems I have a key and sign commits; if
> it's just some server I log into, I don't.
>
> Now, I don't use git config to set options, so I'm happy as long as git
> config can read both, which it does.
> --
> brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US
> https://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only
> OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

Ok, so my patch documentation is wrong. Perhaps we could further clarify in the documentation how it works, but I'm not really sure what the best approach is.

I do find it a bit weird that --global writes to one of either file, and doesn't read from both. I'd rather have --global "only" be .gitconfig, and instead add a new option for handling XDG file, and then have it such that it reads them in system -> xdg -> home/.gitconfig -> local, which allows for local .gitconfig to override XDG config, but logically treat them just like we do any other files.

Thanks, Jake