[PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Johannes Schindelin]

These two patches introduce the long awaited global config. Thanks to 
Paksy for pushing and starting it.

The first patch only does the reading part, while the second introduces the
--no-local flag to git-repo-config.

There are three subjects for discussion:

- The name. I personally prefer .gitconfig, since we talk about the repo
  config all the time. But I have no strong feelings there.

- The --no-local flag could be implemented more cleanly, but also less
  elegantly, by introducing git_config_set_multivar_in_file(). I hesitated
  to do that, because there would be even more places replicating the
  global / local path resolution.

- With this, repo-config does no longer merit its name. What do people think
  about making it a builtin named "git config"? (Of course, nothing hinders
  us to keep the synonymous "repo-config" indefinitely...)

Ciao,
Dscho

SV: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Sven Ekman]

<Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> skrev:
 
> There are three subjects for discussion:

Have you considered making ~/.gitconfig a directory?
Maybe Git wants to store more data later.

Maybe, porcelains would want to use this directory,
too.  Gitk, tig, maybe Cogito at some time.  One could
have the configuration of all these git-related tools
in a common namespace.

People like me, who work on a lot of different
machines, could simply sync this directory across
accounts and always work in their environment.

Sven

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Nikolai Weibull]

On 6/8/06, Sven Ekman <svekman@yahoo.se> wrote:
> <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> skrev:
>
> > There are three subjects for discussion:
>
> Have you considered making ~/.gitconfig a directory?
> Maybe Git wants to store more data later.

I second that.  And it'd be nice if it was configurable through
an environment variable, e.g., GIT_USER_CONFIG_HOME.
A better name may be possible ;-).

  nikolai

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Nikolai Weibull wrote:

> On 6/8/06, Sven Ekman <svekman@yahoo.se> wrote:
> > <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> skrev:
> > 
> > > There are three subjects for discussion:
> > 
> > Have you considered making ~/.gitconfig a directory?
> > Maybe Git wants to store more data later.
> 
> I second that.

I don't. What's wrong with the simple approach of a single config file? 
You can use a single tool for all the configuration, and do not need to 
care about anything.

After all, it is about _configuration_, not data storing. That is what 
$GIT_DIR/objects is for.

> And it'd be nice if it was configurable through an environment variable, 
> e.g., GIT_USER_CONFIG_HOME.

<sarcasm ignore=if-possible>
Let's see. AFAIK all programs I know (including cvs and vim, for 
one) have a fixed name. Hmm. Perhaps this is for a reason? Like, to reduce 
confusion?

Alternatively, we could introduce a config variable "core.globalConfig" to 
see where the global config is.
</sarcasm>

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Nikolai Weibull]

On 6/8/06, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Nikolai Weibull wrote:
> > On 6/8/06, Sven Ekman <svekman@yahoo.se> wrote:
> > > <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> skrev:

> > > Have you considered making ~/.gitconfig a directory?
> > > Maybe Git wants to store more data later.

> > I second that.

> I don't. What's wrong with the simple approach of a single config file?
> You can use a single tool for all the configuration, and do not need to
> care about anything.

Who said anything about something more than one configuration file?
It's nice to have a directory if we later decide to store other kinds of files
there as well, e.g., templates or some keyring information or something else,
perhaps not well-suited for storing in an ini-like file.

> > And it'd be nice if it was configurable through an environment variable,
> > e.g., GIT_USER_CONFIG_HOME.

> Let's see. AFAIK all programs I know (including cvs and vim, for
> one) have a fixed name. Hmm. Perhaps this is for a reason? Like, to reduce
> confusion?

That's hardly a very good reason.  It's not like you _have_ to use another name.

I keep as many configuration files as possible in ~/.local/etc/, as it
simplifies
keeping them in a Git repository.  Here's an extract from my .zprofile:

XDG_CONFIG_HOME=~/.local/etc
VIMINIT="so $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vim/vimrc"
INPUTRC=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/inputrc
INDENT_PROFILE=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/indentrc
SCREENRC=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/screenrc
GNUPGHOME=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gnupg
IRBRC=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/irbrc
LFTP_HOME=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lftp
MPLAYER_HOME=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mplayer
GTK2_RC_FILES=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gtkrc

The only programs that don't play along, yet, are Mozilla, OpenSSH,
and Subversion.  (Mozilla is actually compile-time configurable.)

But I guess I should be providing a patch instead of just a bunch of
reasoning for someone else to write one...

> Alternatively, we could introduce a config variable "core.globalConfig" to
> see where the global config is.

That is a very good idea.  We wouldn't need an environment variable in
that case.

  nikolai (who wonders if people can spot irony and sarcasm without extra help)

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Nikolai Weibull wrote:

> Who said anything about something more than one configuration file? It's 
> nice to have a directory if we later decide to store other kinds of 
> files there as well, e.g., templates or some keyring information or 
> something else, perhaps not well-suited for storing in an ini-like file.

My point was: this has nothing to do with the "git config". Gitk, for 
example, has its own file there, ~/.gitk.

> > Alternatively, we could introduce a config variable "core.globalConfig" to
> > see where the global config is.
> 
> That is a very good idea.  We wouldn't need an environment variable in
> that case.
> 
>  nikolai (who wonders if people can spot irony and sarcasm without extra 
> help)

No they can't. You almost had me falling for it...

Ciao,
Dscho

P.S.: I also wanted to mention that we could migrate all the config into 
an XML format. And maybe have an SQL backend instead of an object store.

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Jon Loeliger]

On Thu, 2006-06-08 at 06:30, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

> 
> - The name. I personally prefer .gitconfig, since we talk about the repo
>   config all the time. But I have no strong feelings there.

I like .gitconfig over .gitrc.

> - The --no-local flag could be implemented more cleanly, but also less

Could we have multiple levels, and have names that call out
where it applies?  Perhaps something like:

--repo   into $GIT_DIR/.gitconfig  <- current default, right?
--home   into ~/.gitconfig
--site   into /etc/gitconfig
--share  into /usr/share/git/config

My issue is that --no-local is vague and doesn't call out
where it actually does go.  There could be more than one
different non-local place.


> - With this, repo-config does no longer merit its name. What do people think
>   about making it a builtin named "git config"? (Of course, nothing hinders
>   us to keep the synonymous "repo-config" indefinitely...)

I have often forgotten the "repo-" part, and go looking
for the "git config ..." man page and command.  I think
it should be "git config".

Perhaps, "git repo-config"  would be "git config --repo ...."
And "git config ..." would need an explict --home, --repo,
--site type location flag from above?


But, hey, that's all pre-coffee.

jdl

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Alex Riesen]

On 6/8/06, Jon Loeliger <jdl@freescale.com> wrote:
> --repo   into $GIT_DIR/.gitconfig  <- current default, right?
> --home   into ~/.gitconfig
> --site   into /etc/gitconfig
> --share  into /usr/share/git/config

BTW, if we go that far, maybe it makes more sense to
implement a way to include files other config files?
So repo-level config can (maybe implicitely) have an
"include ~/.gitconfig" which in turn can "include /etc/gitconfig".

We could even do like C-preprocessor does: relative
pathnames can be searched in a defined set of directores.

That's all overengineered, probably. I never needed .git/config,
except for switching exec-bit (which I'd like to have on per-site
basis, to be fair).

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Jon Loeliger wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-06-08 at 06:30, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > - The --no-local flag could be implemented more cleanly, but also less
> 
> Could we have multiple levels, and have names that call out
> where it applies?  Perhaps something like:
> 
> --repo   into $GIT_DIR/.gitconfig  <- current default, right?
> --home   into ~/.gitconfig
> --site   into /etc/gitconfig
> --share  into /usr/share/git/config
> 
> My issue is that --no-local is vague and doesn't call out
> where it actually does go.  There could be more than one
> different non-local place.

The whole idea is that there are only two levels of configuration. Global 
(applies to all calls to git) and local (applies only to the repository).

Now, it makes sense to make settings overrideable in a certain order: If 
the global default does not match your needs in a particular case, 
override it. With "git-repo-config <key> <value>".

*However*, if you want to change the default, it makes sense to say 
"--no-local" or "--global", but I doubt that it makes any sense at all to 
access a certain finer level. For example, when would you possibly need to 
wrap in porcelain a method to query exactly which aliases are defined in 
/usr/local/share/git/config?

IOW if you want to edit /etc/gitconfig or something else you need admin 
permissions for with git-repo-config, you should look for another 
profession. Quickly.

> But, hey, that's all pre-coffee.

post-coffee is pre-coffee.

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Jakub Narebski]

Jon Loeliger wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-06-08 at 06:30, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

>> - The --no-local flag [...]
> 
> Could we have multiple levels, and have names that call out
> where it applies?  Perhaps something like:
> 
> --repo   into $GIT_DIR/.gitconfig  <- current default, right?
> --home   into ~/.gitconfig
> --site   into /etc/gitconfig
> --share  into /usr/share/git/config

I like that too, wlthough --home might be named --user, and --share be named
--predefined or --library.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland

Re: [PATCH 0/2] Introduce ~/.gitconfig

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Jakub Narebski wrote:

> Jon Loeliger wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2006-06-08 at 06:30, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> >> - The --no-local flag [...]
> > 
> > Could we have multiple levels, and have names that call out
> > where it applies?  Perhaps something like:
> > 
> > --repo   into $GIT_DIR/.gitconfig  <- current default, right?
> > --home   into ~/.gitconfig
> > --site   into /etc/gitconfig
> > --share  into /usr/share/git/config
> 
> I like that too, wlthough --home might be named --user, and --share be 
> named --predefined or --library.

I am rather disinclined for the --share or --predefined flags, as these 
would only make sense for the administrator. And since this code was 
partly written by me, it eats small children.

Ciao,
Dscho