Re: The git spring cleanup challenge

On Fri, Jul 02 2021, Felipe Contreras wrote:

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

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On Thu, Jun 03 2021, Felipe Contreras wrote:

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Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

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We could then just extend the include syntax rather easily to include
"libraries", which would be like the current include.path, but would
understand a library:: prefix (better name bikeshedding welcome). We'd
then just ship these in /usr/share/git-core/config/includes or whatever,
e.g. /usr/share/git-core/config/includes/aliases/svn-like.cfg

I wouldn't be against some some suggested defaults, but *in addition* to
some hardcoded default aliases that are documented.

I'm talking about in terms of the flexibility of implementation of
on-by-default defaults. We could implement it as I suggested and then
just have a core.defaultIncludes, which would by default be set to
git::aliases/svn-like.cfg or whatever, i.e. equivalent to:

    [core]
    defaultIncludes = "git::default.cfg"

Which itself would include a
/usr/share/git-core/config/includes/default.cfg which would do:

I really gave this a try, but the problem is that git doesn't even have
a stardard location to install shared files.

I started with $sharedir, but that's not git-specific. Then I added
$gitsharedir which required a bunch of changes to the Makefile, and
eventually I decided against it.

We don't have standard location for shared files. Period.

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In a way this is total bikeshedding, I just think it's worth doing it
this way up-front.

Yes, maybe so, but git infraestructure is completely unprepared for that
(at this point).

So I just decied to hard-code them [1]

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/20210702100506.1422429-1-felipe.contreras@gmail.com/ (local)

FWIW I only saw this reply after I replied in that thread
... referencing this one.

I haven't tried, but I'd think it wouldn't be a big change. You're
injecting alias.* config directly, you could just inject an
include.path=* in the relevant part of the config machinery instead.

We'd need a new verb like gitdir:* and onbranch:*, maybe system:* or
git:*, we'd then search system:foo.cfg for those relative to our libexec
or /usr/share data, e.g. /usr/lib/git-core/config/foo.cfg

We could then carry those in includes/* in the git.git repo, and to
address the "let's make sure they're there" have a trivial build step
like the command-list.h to build those into a C object. I.e. dog-food on
our own build process and run `git config -f <file> -l -z` for each one,
munge that and spew it into a *.c
file. I.e. include/aliases/svn-like.cfg or whatever.

Then when we can't find a system:* (or whatever it's called)
handle_path_include() we'd consult that list of fallbacks.

I'm not saying it's trivial, just that I think in practice building
consensus for a "one blessed list of hardcoded aliases" is going to be a
very tough sell, and making it optional/configurable/pluggable might
make that sell a lot easier.