Re: Why does "git config" output nothing instead of the default value for unset variables?

On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 2:47 PM, Andrew Ardill [off-list ref] wrote:

On 14 April 2013 22:34, Sebastian Schuberth [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Usually when I query a variable I'm not so much interested in whether it is at all (explicitly) set to some value or not, but what value is currently in use.

With your change in place, how do you know if the config item has been
explicitly set in your system?

Well, this could be done several ways. Maybe output the variable value
in all upper case if it's the implicit / built-in default, and in all
lower case if it has been explicitly set somewhere.

The closest thing I can see for doing this is git config --list, but
perhaps there should be a flag to check if a config item is set?

Yet more command line options? Well, there's probably no way around
that in order to maintain backward compatibility.

More to the point, I can easily imagine many scripts relying on git
config returning a value to indicate that a config item has been set.
Your proposed change would break all those. For that reason, it might
be nicer to introduce a flag that returns the config if it is set or
the default otherwise. Something like git config --value perhaps.

Right.

-- 
Sebastian Schuberth