Re: git-dir requires work-tree; documentation improvements for working directory

From: Yaroslav Nikitenko <metst13@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 2, 2021, 19:44 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+RLzGArUrxC-Kbng3qGpRZUrZXKZj3zD3Hcut=XrUY-i-eYAw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <5ff0c58422038_90dc208ea@natae.notmuch>

2021-01-02 22:12 GMT+03:00, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>:

Show 17 quoted lines

> Yaroslav Nikitenko wrote:
>> I use git to manage my dotfiles with this command:
>>
>>     git --git-dir=/home/yaroslav/.cfg/ --work-tree=/home/yaroslav
>
> I do precisely the same thing.
>
>> When reading documentation, I noticed two issues.
>>
>> 1) The command doesn't work without --work-tree (even from the top
>> level directory, which is my home directory).
>>
>>     [~]$ git --git-dir=/home/yaroslav/.cfg/ status
>>     fatal: this operation must be run in a work tree
>
> That's weird. It works fine here (although I don't see why I would want
> that).

BTW, how do you do that in your case?

> If you remove all your configuration does it still fail?

It starts to work when I remove my .cfg/config. I've no idea why it happens. Here is its contents:

$ more .cfg/config
[core]
	repositoryformatversion = 0
	filemode = true
	bare = true
[remote "origin"]
	url = me@myserver:my_working_path
[branch "master"]
	remote = origin
	merge = refs/heads/master

Show 14 quoted lines

>> 2) In the man documentation for git > git-dir it's written
>> "It can be an absolute path or relative path to current working
>> directory."
>> I think this can be confused with work-tree. I suggest removing the
>> word 'working' (and probably add an article 'the' before the
>> 'current', but I'm not a native speaker).
>
> Yes, the article is missing, as for the rest I have no opinion.
>
>> I don't subscribe to the mailing list but hope that I'll receive the
>> replies.
>
> Don't worry. The git mailing list doesn't munge the Reply-To header, so
> any decent MUA will keep you in Cc.

I noted that, thanks.

Show 5 quoted lines

> Cheers.
>
> --
> Felipe Contreras
>