# What is XDG_CONFIG_HOME for exactly? 4 messages from 2015-03-15 to 2015-03-16. Participants: Robert Dailey, Matthieu Moy. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/38817 ## Robert Dailey, 2015-03-15 23:37 Subject: What is XDG_CONFIG_HOME for exactly? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAHd499CmxwGJeW6gMARhc%2BcT%2Br3TK98m%2BLyyS%2BeCFXz8qKHrFw%40mail.gmail.com ``` My understanding is that git reads the priority of configuration as follows: 1. /.git/config 2. $HOME/.gitconfig 3. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config 4. system level git config (not sure exactly where this is; not relevant to me on Windows) I have a .gitconfig in Dropbox that I symlink to my home directory on different platforms. Specifically, I share this gitconfig across Cygwin/msys on Windows and Ubuntu. If I can use XDG_CONFIG_HOME to leverage platform-specific settings, I'd be able to keep platform-agnostic settings in my $HOME/.gitconfig and put platform-specific settings in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config and simply give XDG_CONFIG_HOME a different name on different platforms. Is this what it was designed for? If not, what would be the best approach for this? I was thinking of contributing a patch that would let you specify the name of your git config in the home directory, but I'm not sure if that is necessary. Something like this: $HOME/$GIT_CONFIG_FILENAME, where GIT_CONFIG_FILENAME defaults to ".gitconfig" if it is not set or empty. ``` ## Robert Dailey, 2015-03-15 23:50 Subject: Re: What is XDG_CONFIG_HOME for exactly? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAHd499AGHgBECH9t_EtkwLx7VCx3yVnDS27PteF3zF1xSAG8Yg%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` As a follow-up, I tested the following in my .bashrc: # Utilize different GIT settings based on platform if [[ $OSTYPE == 'msys' || $OSTYPE == 'cygwin' ]]; then echo 'Using WINDOWS specific git settings' export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=.config-windows else echo 'Using LINUX specific git settings' export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=.config-linux fi This seems to work nicely!! I share my $HOME directory (located in dropbox) across all platforms so this helps me keep a consistent environment across all my machines with zero effort. On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 6:37 PM, Robert Dailey wrote: > My understanding is that git reads the priority of configuration as follows: > > 1. /.git/config > 2. $HOME/.gitconfig > 3. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config > 4. system level git config (not sure exactly where this is; not > relevant to me on Windows) > > I have a .gitconfig in Dropbox that I symlink to my home directory on > different platforms. Specifically, I share this gitconfig across > Cygwin/msys on Windows and Ubuntu. > > If I can use XDG_CONFIG_HOME to leverage platform-specific settings, > I'd be able to keep platform-agnostic settings in my $HOME/.gitconfig > and put platform-specific settings in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config and > simply give XDG_CONFIG_HOME a different name on different platforms. > > Is this what it was designed for? If not, what would be the best > approach for this? I was thinking of contributing a patch that would > let you specify the name of your git config in the home directory, but > I'm not sure if that is necessary. Something like this: > > $HOME/$GIT_CONFIG_FILENAME, where GIT_CONFIG_FILENAME defaults to > ".gitconfig" if it is not set or empty. ``` ## Robert Dailey, 2015-03-15 23:59 Subject: Re: What is XDG_CONFIG_HOME for exactly? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAHd499CPevdk5E-m2U5rWjiaV%2Bzz74%2BEv6hvpeLoieVPb8TFtg%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` Sorry for the continuous updates... it seems I spoke too soon. This works until you CD into a repository, then none of the settings are accessible. So yeah, basically I need to make sure I'm using this as intended... I still don't understand the purpose of the XDG thing. On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 6:50 PM, Robert Dailey wrote: > As a follow-up, I tested the following in my .bashrc: > > > # Utilize different GIT settings based on platform > if [[ $OSTYPE == 'msys' || $OSTYPE == 'cygwin' ]]; then > echo 'Using WINDOWS specific git settings' > export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=.config-windows > else > echo 'Using LINUX specific git settings' > export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=.config-linux > fi > > > This seems to work nicely!! I share my $HOME directory (located in > dropbox) across all platforms so this helps me keep a consistent > environment across all my machines with zero effort. > > On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 6:37 PM, Robert Dailey wrote: >> My understanding is that git reads the priority of configuration as follows: >> >> 1. /.git/config >> 2. $HOME/.gitconfig >> 3. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config >> 4. system level git config (not sure exactly where this is; not >> relevant to me on Windows) >> >> I have a .gitconfig in Dropbox that I symlink to my home directory on >> different platforms. Specifically, I share this gitconfig across >> Cygwin/msys on Windows and Ubuntu. >> >> If I can use XDG_CONFIG_HOME to leverage platform-specific settings, >> I'd be able to keep platform-agnostic settings in my $HOME/.gitconfig >> and put platform-specific settings in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config and >> simply give XDG_CONFIG_HOME a different name on different platforms. >> >> Is this what it was designed for? If not, what would be the best >> approach for this? I was thinking of contributing a patch that would >> let you specify the name of your git config in the home directory, but >> I'm not sure if that is necessary. Something like this: >> >> $HOME/$GIT_CONFIG_FILENAME, where GIT_CONFIG_FILENAME defaults to >> ".gitconfig" if it is not set or empty. ``` ## Matthieu Moy, 2015-03-16 09:31 Subject: Re: What is XDG_CONFIG_HOME for exactly? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/vpqvbi1qodw.fsf%40anie.imag.fr In-Reply-To: ``` > On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 6:37 PM, Robert Dailey wrote: >> My understanding is that git reads the priority of configuration as follows: >> >> 1. /.git/config >> 2. $HOME/.gitconfig >> 3. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config $HOME/.gitconfig is the traditional Unix location for config files. It was the only per-user config files in early versions of Git. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config is the location following freedesktop's XDG standard. It has several advantages (you can version and/or share individual $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ as a whole directory, while it's much harder to version all ~/.git* files individually for example). You typically want to use either one or the other. >> 4. system level git config (not sure exactly where this is; not >> relevant to me on Windows) This is relevant if you use a shared machine and your sysadmin wants to have the same configuration for all users. > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Robert Dailey writes: > As a follow-up, I tested the following in my .bashrc: > > > # Utilize different GIT settings based on platform > if [[ $OSTYPE == 'msys' || $OSTYPE == 'cygwin' ]]; then > echo 'Using WINDOWS specific git settings' > export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=.config-windows You need an absolute directory here: export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=$HOME/.config-windows Then, I'd suggest that $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config contains a [include] path = ../../.config-shared/git/config so that you can factor out common portions of your config file into .config-shared/git/config and keep machine-specific portions in ~/.config-{windows,linux}. -- Matthieu Moy http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/ ```