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