Re: [PATCH v2] config: introduce an Operating System-specific `includeIf` condition

From: Chris Torek <chris.torek@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 19, 2023, 14:26 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPx1GvcsxFbdUBZayzAU0U1MNMUN2NqaBLfZ6C1M=SykWQ_CHg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <67a2d12c-6250-c4ee-dd26-fd8ecc71b8bc@gmx.de>

Note: I'm going to mix two things here (maybe not the best idea)
and change the order.

On Wed, Apr 19, 2023 at 5:28 AM Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> This is probably the most valuable feedback in this entire thread: What is
> the problem we're trying to solve here?
>
> The original report (which this patch tries to address) asks for a way to
> have a user-wide ("global") Git configuration that can be shared across
> machines and that allows for adapting to the various environments. The
> rationale is motivated well e.g. in
> https://medium.com/doing-things-right/platform-specific-gitconfigs-and-the-wonderful-includeif-7376cd44994d
> where platform-specific credential managers, editors, diff highlighters
> that work only in certain setups, and work vs personal environments are
> mentioned.

Why not allow use of environment variables?  Perhaps a simple:

git config include.env.USER_VAR

and/or:

git config include.ifexists.env.DIR

(feel free to invent better names!) or similar.  The user can then

export DIR=whatever

in some outside-of-Git setup.

On a separate note:

> ... This feature is meant for Git users, who I
> must assume based on my experience would expect the value to be
> case-insensitive. I.e. they would expect both `linux` and `Linux` to
> match.

I'm not at all sure about this: we already see a lot of confusion from people who don't understand why, if Git is case-sensitive about branch names (which it is), Git isn't case-sensitive about branch names *sometimes* on Windows and macOS.

(In any case, using an env var sidesteps this question.)

Chris