# Is there a reason why variable expansion is not allowed in git?

1 messages from 2022-04-29 to 2022-04-29. Participants: Jack Adrian Zappa.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/57815

## Jack Adrian Zappa, 2022-04-29 12:30

Subject: Is there a reason why variable expansion is not allowed in git?
Message-ID: <CAKepmagtT6=AzP5=-AhTtR1GbAb5nXJ8h24WsqTDm5B=7CSCyg@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAKepmagtT6%3DAzP5%3D-AhTtR1GbAb5nXJ8h24WsqTDm5B%3D7CSCyg%40mail.gmail.com

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I was trying to make my .gitconfig cleaner and easier to maintain, and
I found that variable expansion isn't a thing.  Why is that?

A use case that this would be useful is having several commands
requiring the same parameters which are long and hard to read and
maintain, such as a regex.  You can see my question on SO here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72005402/is-there-a-way-to-define-and-use-a-user-defined-variable-in-the-gitconfig-file

Although an answer was submitted, it is a very roundabout way to do
something that should be very simple.  There is the %(var) expansion
for paths available, so I would think that a similar simple text
expansion wouldn't be that difficult.  Perhaps by using curly braces
rather than parenthesis?

Is there a place where I could request this as a feature?

Cheers,


JAZ

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