Re: [PATCH 3/3] setup: always honor GIT_WORK_TREE and core.worktree

Maaartin [off-list ref] writes:

On 11-01-19 13:42, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

quoted

Unfortunately the existence of GIT_WORK_TREE makes it tempting to
use without setting GIT_DIR.

Maybe I'm asking nonsense, but why should I always use both? On the
command line, I either cd to my (alternate) working tree and use GIT_DIR
only or the other way round.

As long as you were at the root level of these two sets of "working trees",
you don't need GIT_WORK_TREE at all.

We originally had only GIT_DIR and people who wanted to use a working tree
without an embedded .git (hence having to use GIT_DIR) complained that
they cannot work from subdirectories while cd'ing around, because you
declare that you are at the root of your working tree by using GIT_DIR
(naturally, there is no discovery of .git so we won't know where the root
is).  GIT_WORK_TREE was added to augment the mechanism to allow them to
specify where their root is, so that they can set both and then chdir
around inside their working tree.