Re: .git ignored regardless of --git-dir value

Shawn Ferris [off-list ref] writes:

Is it expected behavior to have the .git directory ignored, even after
specifying an alternate location with --git-dir? For example:

$ git --git-dir=.foo init
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/sferris/work/t/.foo/

GIT_DIR and --git-dir are meant to refer to a different .git dir (or a
bare-looking repository) located elsewhere, and not for a random pathname
like ".foo". No matter what, ".git/" anywhere is ignored from very early
days of Git, as Linus himself writes in the source, e.g. 8695c8b (Add
"show-files" command to show the list of managed (or non-managed) files.,
2005-04-11):

 ...
 * Also, we currently ignore all names starting with a dot.
 * That likely will not change. 
 ...