Re: [QUESTION] mergetool environment variables

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 14, 2025, 06:38 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq8qihk088.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <004101dc250d$18173950$4845abf0$@nexbridge.com>

<rsbecker@nexbridge.com> writes:

> Yes, it needs to be in the git install area. Adding export BASE export LOCAL, etc.,
> works to resolve the situation. I wonder whether that should be documented.

I am not a mergetool user, but I do not think that is how the thing was intended to be used in the first place.

The documentation that may talk about variables BASE etc. (not "environment variables") are meant for those who add their new tool to the existing mergetool/difftool infrastructure, which means that their tool's definition must be dot-sourceable just like any of these tools defined in mergetools/ directory. You'd add yours there, mimicking what they do, and add a handful of shell functions to be called. git-mergetool--lib would then use

    . "$MERGE_TOOLS_DIR/${tool%[0-9]}"

inside its setup_tool function to read your definition.