[PATCH/RFC 0/4] config: read both home and xdg files for --global

From: Delilah Ashley Wu via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 10, 2025, 01:14 UTC
Message-ID: <pull.1938.git.1760058849.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

Hi!

As reported in [1]: `$HOME/.gitconfig` and `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config` are both valid global config locations, but `git config list --global` only includes the former in its output.

Suppose we have this config in `$HOME/.gitconfig`:

[home]
    config = true

And this config in `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config`:

[xdg]
    config = true

Then, to reproduce the issue that `--global` only shows the home config:

$ git config list --global --show-scope --show-origin global file:/Users/delilah/.gitconfig home.config=true

Git correctly applies the XDG config in its effective configuration, but it doesn't show up when `--global` is specified. We can confirm this by checking the output without the `--global` flag:

$ git config list --show-scope --show-origin global file:/Users/delilah/.config/git/config xdg.config=true global file:/Users/delilah/.gitconfig home.config=true

The expected behaviour is both configs should be shown when `--global` is specified, so we'd expect its output to look the same as above. This was confirmed in [2], which quoted the `git config` documentation:

Show 9 quoted lines

> OPTIONS
>     --global::
>         For writing options: write to global `~/.gitconfig` file
>         rather than the repository `.git/config`, write to
>         `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config` file if this file exists and the
>         `~/.gitconfig` file doesn't.
>
>         For reading options: read only from global `~/.gitconfig` and from
>         `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config` rather than from all available files.

The first patch fixes forward slash normalisation on Windows paths. The second patch introduces tests and regression checks. The third and fourth patches implement the fix to include both config files when `--global` is specified. Johannes has kindly pre-reviewed this patch series via GitHub on GitGitGadget #1938 [3]. You'll notice some force-pushes after the review, but I only changed commit messages.

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAFA9we-QLQRzJdGMMCPatmfrk1oHeiUu9msMRXXk1MLE5HRxBQ@mail.gmail.com/ [2]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqmt5lezi3.fsf@gitster.g/ [3]: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/1938/

Thank you all for your time! Delilah

Delilah Ashley Wu (4):
  cleanup_path: force forward slashes on Windows
  config: test home and xdg files in `list --global`
  config: read global scope via config_sequence
  config: keep bailing on unreadable global files

 builtin/config.c     | 12 ++++++++
 config.c             | 54 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
 config.h             |  2 ++
 path.c               | 10 +++++--
 t/t1300-config.sh    | 65 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 t/t1306-xdg-files.sh |  3 +-
 6 files changed, 128 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)

base-commit: ca2559c1d630eb4f04cdee2328aaf1c768907a9e
Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-1938%2Fdelilahw%2Flilah%2Ffix-config-list-global-home-and-xdg%2Fpatchset-v1
Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-1938/delilahw/lilah/fix-config-list-global-home-and-xdg/patchset-v1
Pull-Request: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/1938

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