Git stash (or git rev-parse) doesn't inherit the '--work-tree' parameter

Hello guys,

I don't know if this is a normal behavior, so I'll just explain it here.

* Behavior:

from a directory OUTSIDE my git repo, I can run this command successfully:
 $ git --git-dir=/my/repo/path/.git --work-tree=/my/repo/path pull origin master

But this one:
 $ git --git-dir=/my/repo/path/.git --work-tree=/my/repo/path stash
Will fails with :
 'fatal: $program_name cannot be used without a working tree.'
(Yes, the error message has been corrected since, but I use debian, so
I'm at least 6 month late).

* A bit of investigation:
I don't know many about git internal functioning, but with a bit of
googleing, I would point out git-sh-setup.sh:204, in function
require_work_tree, called by git-stash.
I could test (from outside my git repo, again):
 git --git-dir=/my/repo/path/.git --work-tree=/my/repo/path rev-parse
--is-inside-work-tree
return:
 false

What surprise me is that 'git-dir' seems to be passed ok to rev-parse:
 git --git-dir=/my/repo/path/.git --work-tree=/my/repo/path rev-parse --git-dir
returns:
 /my/repo/path/.git

* Question
Is this a normal behavior? Stash can only be applied in current
working directory?
If yes, I'll have to change my script to
 (cd && git command)
If not, should I push a bug report somewhere?

Marc

On November 29, 2017 11:02:10 PM PST, marc PINHEDE <marc.pinhede@gmail.com> wrote:

It's possible that is-inside-worktree is testing if current dir is inside work tree, and not if the work tree variable is... Thus I wouldn't expect this to behave as you seem to expect.

It doesn't sound like normal behavior to me... Does "git -C" work?

Either way id expect setting the work tree and got dir to work for most commands.

However, it may not of the command expects current dir to matter. That's where using -C comes into play. Try that and see if it fixes your problem.

That is, git -C <path to work tree> stash

Thanks, Jake