Thread (7 messages) read the whole thread 7 messages, 3 authors, 2021-01-04

git-dir requires work-tree; documentation improvements for working directory

From: Yaroslav Nikitenko <hidden>
Date: 2021-01-02 14:42:12

Dear git users and maintainers,

I use git to manage my dotfiles with this command:

    git --git-dir=/home/yaroslav/.cfg/ --work-tree=/home/yaroslav

When reading documentation, I noticed two issues.

1) The command doesn't work without --work-tree (even from the top
level directory, which is my home directory).

    [~]$ git --git-dir=/home/yaroslav/.cfg/ status
    fatal: this operation must be run in a work tree

I don't have any configuration or environment variables for work-tree
(as warned here,
https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAPig+cRqkzPzNX8UN4OcgEOOKbtZRLCjNNiZsOVkGBy0pvsEkQ@mail.gmail.com/ (local)).

In `man git` for git-dir it says "If you are not at the top-level
directory of the working tree, you should tell Git where the top-level
of the working tree is" ("If"), the same is quoted in a recent thread
(https://lore.kernel.org/git/88D2A179-806F-4321-828A-359692E646B1@gmail.com/ (local))

I'm using git version 2.30.0 on the most recent Arch Linux.

2) In the man documentation for git > git-dir it's written
"It can be an absolute path or relative path to current working directory."
I think this can be confused with work-tree. I suggest removing the
word 'working' (and probably add an article 'the' before the
'current', but I'm not a native speaker).

I can see that the expression "working directory" is used throughout
the man page of git, and it is used ambiguously (sometimes it means
the current directory, sometimes git working directory).

I don't subscribe to the mailing list but hope that I'll receive the replies.

Thank you and Happy New Year!

Best regards,
Yaroslav Nikitenko
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