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

From
YNYaroslav Nikitenko <metst13@gmail.com>
Date
Jan 2, 2021, 14:40 UTC
Message-ID
<CA+RLzGCtp2T=8DG74geBs67X5vUvhwRP4FMZ6MJv+E+Pj=YbWw@mail.gmail.com>
Dear git users and maintainers,
I use git to manage my dotfiles with this command:
    git --git-dir=/home/yaroslav/.cfg/ --work-tree=/home/yaroslav
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

I don't have any configuration or environment variables for work-tree (as warned here, https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAPig+cRqkzPzNX8UN4OcgEOOKbtZRLCjNNiZsOVkGBy0pvsEkQ@mail.gmail.com/).

In `man git` for git-dir it says "If you are not at the top-level directory of the working tree, you should tell Git where the top-level of the working tree is" ("If"), the same is quoted in a recent thread (https://lore.kernel.org/git/88D2A179-806F-4321-828A-359692E646B1@gmail.com/)

I'm using git version 2.30.0 on the most recent Arch Linux.
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).

I can see that the expression "working directory" is used throughout the man page of git, and it is used ambiguously (sometimes it means the current directory, sometimes git working directory).

I don't subscribe to the mailing list but hope that I'll receive the replies.
Thank you and Happy New Year!

Best regards, Yaroslav Nikitenko

Next: Felipe Contreras
Message 1 of 7 in “git-dir requires work-tree; documentation improvements for working directory”
  1. Yaroslav NikitenkoJan 2, 2021
  2. Felipe ContrerasJan 2, 2021
  3. Yaroslav NikitenkoJan 2, 2021
  4. Felipe ContrerasJan 2, 2021
  5. Yaroslav NikitenkoJan 3, 2021
  6. Felipe ContrerasJan 3, 2021
  7. Junio C HamanoJan 4, 2021

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