# git config --global not picking up includes

2 messages from 2015-01-19 to 2015-01-19. Participants: Jim Garrison, Jeff King.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/38405

## Jim Garrison, 2015-01-19 19:37

Subject: git config --global not picking up includes
Message-ID: <54BD5CE6.2060309@garrison.cc>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/54BD5CE6.2060309%40garrison.cc

```
I have found that `git config --global` does not pick up any include 
directives in the git config file.

For instance, my ~/.gitconfig contains the following:

     [include]
         path = /home/garrison/gitconfig-include

And ~/gitconfig-include in turn contains

     [user]
         name = Jim Garrison

However, when I pass the --global flag to git config, my name is not 
picked up:

     $ git config --global user.name
     $ git config user.name
     Jim Garrison

If I instead replace .gitconfig with the contents of gitconfig-include 
(and in turn remove the include step), everything works as expected.

     $ git config --global user.name
     Jim Garrison
     $ git config user.name
     Jim Garrison

I am using the latest git master, built on Debian jessie.

```

## Jeff King, 2015-01-19 19:58

Subject: [PATCH] git-config: better document default behavior for `--include`
Message-ID: <20150119195847.GA8945@peff.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20150119195847.GA8945%40peff.net
In-Reply-To: <54BD5CE6.2060309@garrison.cc>

```
On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 11:37:10AM -0800, Jim Garrison wrote:

> I have found that `git config --global` does not pick up any include
> directives in the git config file.

That's by design. You asked for the entries in a specific file, and we
do not follow any includes by default in that case. You can use
`--include` if you want to follow includes.

The documentation is quite misleading here, though. Here's a patch.

-- >8 --
Subject: git-config: better document default behavior for `--include`

As described in the commit message of 9b25a0b (config: add
include directive, 2012-02-06), the `--include` option is
only on by default in some cases. But our documentation
described it as just "defaults to on", which doesn't tell
the whole story.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 Documentation/git-config.txt | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-config.txt b/Documentation/git-config.txt
index 9dfa1a5..d42c062 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-config.txt
@@ -215,7 +215,9 @@ See also <<FILES>>.
 
 --[no-]includes::
 	Respect `include.*` directives in config files when looking up
-	values. Defaults to on.
+	values. Defaults to `off` when a specific file is given (e.g.,
+	using `--file`, `--global`, etc) and `on` when searching all
+	config files.
 
 [[FILES]]
 FILES
-- 
2.2.1.425.g441bb3c

```