User-wide Git config directory (was Re: [PATCH v2] Let core.excludesfile default to ~/.gitexcludes.)

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Matthieu Moy [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Nanako Shiraishi [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Junio, could you tell us what happened to this thread?

I'm not Junio, but I can try ...
...
So, I dropped the patch until we get closer to a consensus on what the
default value should be.

Thanks for status updates.  Should we start trying to reach a consensus on
how to move forward, or is it not your itch?

I wouldn't say it's not my itch. But I'm not sure I'm the best person
to do the job (job = comming close to a consensus, not writting the
code, which shouldn't be hard). Still, I can at least participate ;-).

It is not _too_ bad to treat ~/.gitconfig specially and support reading
from ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/{excludes,attributes} files.

Let's throw in some ideas about what ~/$SOMEGITTTYNAME/ could be :

1) ~/.git/ => no, that would clash with people versioning their $HOME.

2) ~/.gitconfig/ => no, there's already a file ~/.gitconfig

3) ~/.gitglobal/ => that's an option.

4) ~/.config/git/ or, if set, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ (see
   http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html )
   => my prefered one, already discussed in a different context here :
   http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/135447/focus=135559

Then, there's the question of what to put in this directory. I can see
two and a half options:

a) ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/{excludes,attributes} as you propose.

a') ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/{ignore,attributes} => I think "ignore" is the
   advertized vocabulary most of the time in porcelain, and "excludes"
   exists mostly for historical reasons.

b) ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/<same thing as the content of $GIT_DIR>, that
   is:
   ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/info/exclude
   ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/info/attributes
   and perhaps
   ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/config
   we could imagine also
   ~/.$SOMEGITTTYNAME/hooks

If I were really happy with the layout of $GIT_DIR, I'd vote for b)
for consistancy. But I'm not _that_ happy with it: why are exclude and
attributes not in the same directory as config? why is exclude
singular and attributes plural?

So, I dunno.

We can also add support for ~/.$SOMEGITTYNAME/config and try reading
from it as well, but even if we did so I don't think we should stop
reading from ~/.gitconfig.

Yes, people having a ~/.gitconfig around should be able to continue to
use it (for years at least, and most likely forever).

And you're right to present it as a different problem. Perhaps we
should solve the problem above before starting debating about this
one.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/