threads / discuss / 30643

Alphabetize git config --list

Subject: Alphabetize git config --list

## tl;dr

4 messages between May 28, 2012 and May 29, 2012.

replies: 3people: 3as markdown or json

Zach· May 28, 2012, 20:58 UTC · lore

I was wondering if it would be possible to alphabetically order git config --list by default.

Essentially this $ git config --list | sort

Jeff King· May 28, 2012, 21:23 UTC · re: Zach · lore

Re: Alphabetize git config --list

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 01:58:28PM -0700, Zach wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> I was wondering if it would be possible to alphabetically order git
> config --list by default.
> 
> Essentially this
> $ git config --list | sort

No, it's not a good idea; the order of keys is important. For example, this config:

  [color]
    ui = true
    ui = false

is different than this:

  [color]
    ui = false
    ui = true

While that seems like a contrived example, consider something like a .git/config repo-specific config file overriding a user-wide ~/.gitconfig file. We do it by overwriting the old key.

There are also some "multi" values which accept multiple entries to create a list, and the list order may be relevant (I'd have to check, though; the only one that comes to mind is refspecs, and I don't know that order matters there).

-Peff

Michael Haggerty· May 29, 2012, 05:21 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Re: Alphabetize git config --list

On 05/28/2012 11:23 PM, Jeff King wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 01:58:28PM -0700, Zach wrote:
>
>> I was wondering if it would be possible to alphabetically order git
>> config --list by default.
>>
>> Essentially this
>> $ git config --list | sort
>
> No, it's not a good idea; the order of keys is important. For example,
> [...]

Is the order of *keys* important, or only the order of *values* for a given key? I believe that one could sort the output by key as long as the values for each key are kept in their original order (i.e., sort stably by key). This would indeed make it easier to read the output.

Michael

-- 
Michael Haggerty
mhagger@alum.mit.edu
http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/

Jeff King· May 29, 2012, 08:49 UTC · re: Michael Haggerty · lore

Re: Alphabetize git config --list

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 07:21:47AM +0200, Michael Haggerty wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> >>Essentially this
> >>$ git config --list | sort
> >
> >No, it's not a good idea; the order of keys is important. For example,
> >[...]
> 
> Is the order of *keys* important, or only the order of *values* for a
> given key?  I believe that one could sort the output by key as long
> as the values for each key are kept in their original order (i.e.,
> sort stably by key).  This would indeed make it easier to read the
> output.

Good question. I was thinking of the order of values, but you're right that a stable key-only sort would handle that.

In general, keys are independent, but there are two exceptions I can think of:

  1. We sometimes have aliased keys that get parsed to the same memory
     location (usually this is to maintain backwards compatibility when
     a key is renamed, or wants to grow incompatible features). For
     example, "diff.color" and "color.diff" override each other, and
     their order is important. Also, "diff.funcname" and "diff.xfuncname".
     There may also be others.

  2. Keys which involve pattern matching. The url.*.insteadOf keys seem
     to be order-independent, as they the longest match is used, not the
     first. The credential context-matching code takes all matches
     (though technically, things like the order in which helpers are
     called would be changed by a sort). I can't think of any others
     offhand.

So yes, I think the key order does matter, though only in a few corner cases.

-Peff