Re: Possible BUG in 'git config'

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Feb 11, 2007, 17:37 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0702111829230.22628@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
In-Reply-To: <e5bfff550702110921l710d62cr6c82baed1b678ab2@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007, Marco Costalba wrote:

Show 24 quoted lines

> On 2/11/07, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > So I am certain that you made a mistake when you need to ignore the
> > settings in $HOME/.gitconfig.
> > 
> 
> Please do the following:
> 
> $ cd <git tree repo>
> $ git repo-config --global --unset user.name
> $ git repo-config --unset user.name
> $ git gui
> 
> Then go to Edit->options, you will see empty both 'git repository' and
> 'Global (All repositories)'
> 
> Then exit 'git gui' and type:
> 
> $ git repo-config --global user.name dummy
> $ git gui
> 
> Then go to Edit->options and.... surprise! dummy has been added to
> both panes instead of only in 'Global' one.

I don't know. If you want that level of control, yes. But as has been suggested before: .git/config as well as ~/.gitconfig have been meant to be edited manually, but some people really need a special purpose UI for everything, don't they?

As I said, for this you should use "GIT_CONFIG=$GIT_DIR/config git config".

Show 7 quoted lines

> The bug is not in 'git gui' but in 'git repo-config' that when queried
> for user.name if doesn't find it in local config, silently falls back
> in global config. This is not documented and probably a bug because
> documentation of --global option says:
> 
> --global::
>       Use global ~/.gitconfig file *rather than* the repository .git/config.

Yes, this is probably a bug. But it's obvious that if git-config _without_ --global would _not_ use ~/.gitconfig, that would rather make ~/.gitconfig pointless, wouldn't it?

So yes, the description should mention that this is meant for the case of _setting_ variables, not _querying_ variables. The original poster (Sean) probaly though -- IMHO correctly -- that querying with --global makes no sense.

Ciao, Dscho