URL substitution and config file precedence

Dear Gits,

I expect .git/config to tae precedence over ~/.gitconfig, which in turn gets favoured over /etc/gitconfig. This works fine, except for the url.….insteadOf settings.

Have a look at the following:

  % grep madduck: .git/config
    url = madduck:pub/puppet/modules/git

  % grep -B1 nsteadOf /etc/gitconfig ~/.gitconfig
  /etc/gitconfig-[url "git://git.madduck.net/madduck/"]
  /etc/gitconfig: insteadOf = madduck:
  --
  /home/madduck/.gitconfig-[url "ssh://git.madduck.net/madduck/"]
  /home/madduck/.gitconfig:       insteadOf = madduck:
  /home/madduck/.gitconfig:       pushInsteadOf = git://git.madduck.net/madduck/

  % git push -v
  Pushing to git://git.madduck.net/madduck/pub/puppet/modules/git
  fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

There seem to be two problems:

  1. the value from /etc/gitconfig seems to be preferred over the
     one from ~/.gitconfig. I think this is due to the fact that the
     syntax for URL substitution is a bit whack and the two keys
     different, so the merge is actually a union-merge, and then the
     result is probably just the first match (git:// sorts before
     ssh://).

  2. URL substitution is not recursive, or else the git:// URL would
     eventually be replaced with the ssh:// URL.

I can address both issues by adding a "pushInsteadOf = madduck:" to ~/.gitconfig, but …

… that only addresses pushing. I don't see a way to fix fetching, where the pushInsteadOf trick does not work.

Any ideas how to work around it?

Why was the syntax chosen backwards in this way? Why not have

  [urlsubst "madduck:"]
      replaceWith = ssh://git.madduck.net/madduck/

or even better:

  [url_regsubst]
      somefreelychosenname = s|madduck:|ssh://git.madduck.net/madduck/|

Thoughts?

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 15:37, martin f krafft <madduck@madduck.net> wrote:

Right, the git-config backend just merges on a key-value basis. It isn't smart.

I don't know, but it usually helps if you add the person who added the feature to the CC-list.

also sprach Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> [2010.08.02.1805 +0200]:

Yeah, I didn't check. Does anyone happen to know who that was, saving me the excursion into the history? I don't have Git cloned on this laptop and I am on a really bad link. :(

Thanks,

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 17:38, martin f krafft <madduck@madduck.net> wrote:

Daniel Barkalow added it back in 2008. Adding him to the CC list.

martin f krafft wrote:

Almost.  I do not think there is any sorting involved.

It instead seems to be an unintended consequence of the "first match wins" rule from v1.5.5-rc0~142^2 (url rewriting: take longest and first match, 2008-02-24). If we were starting over, I think it would make more sense to make the _last_ match win, which would be closer to how git configuration works in general.

I wasn’t there, so I can’t complain. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/74535/focus=74594

I think you’re right, that

	[fakeurl "madduck:"]
		url = git://git.madduck.net/madduck/
		pushurl = ssh://git.madduck.net/madduck/

or similar would be more convenient to work with than

	[url "ssh://git.madduck.net/madduck/"]
		pushinsteadof = madduck:
	[url "git://git.madduck.net/madduck/"]
		insteadof = madduck:

Jonathan