Re: [PATCH] Support "core.excludesfile = ~/.gitignore"

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 11:11:14AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

Consistency and usefulness are different things.  Suppose you want as the
upstream of your project maintain and distribute a mail-alias list in-tree
(say, the file is at the root level, CONTRIBUTORS), and you suggest
contributors to use it when using "commit --author".

Which one do you want to write in your README:

	[user]
        	nicknamelistfile = ../CONTRIBUTORS

or

	[user]
        	nicknamelistfile = CONTRIBUTORS

You have to say the former if it is relative to .git/config.

Couldn't the exact opposite argument be made for "suppose you want to
put the mail-alias file in a repo-specific directory that was not
tracked?" I.e., you are trading off "CONTRIBUTORS" against
".git/CONTRIBUTORS".

No, I couldn't ;-)

Why would you write what you wrote in README?

Anything you store in .git is not propagated, so the instruction would not
likely to be "store it in .git/CONTRIBUTORS and point at it".  There is no
merit in forcing users to standardize on "in .git".  The instruction would
be to "store it anywhere you want, and point at it".

The example I gave is very different.  It points at an in-tree thing, and
anybody who has worktree checked out will have it _at the location I as
the README writer expect it to be_.  That is the difference that makes the
exact opposite argument much weaker.

That's why I suggested "relative to work tree if in .git/config, or gitdir
if in config of a bare repository", although honestly speaking I do not
have very strong preference either way.

If you want to be able to point to either, I suspect we are better off
simply introducing some basic substitutions like $GIT_DIR and
$GIT_WORK_TREE. Maybe even just allow environment variable expansion,
and then promise to set those variables, which takes care of $HOME
automagically.

Because we haven't deprecated core.worktree (or $GIT_WORK_TREE) yet, your
suggestion has an obvious chicken-and-egg problem, even though otherwise I
think it makes perfect sense and very much like it.

Perhaps we should rid of the worktree that is separate and floats
unrelated to where $GIT_DIR is.