intended use of "git --exec-path"?

intended use of "git --exec-path"?

[Scott Parish]

"git --exec-path" presently prints out the highest priority path
to find executable in. That's a what; i'm curious why and when it
should be used. Basically i'm wondering if its still useful, and
what, if anything, it should be printing.

Thanks
sRp

-- 
Scott Parish
http://srparish.net/

Re: intended use of "git --exec-path"?

[Shawn O. Pearce]

Scott Parish <sRp@srparish.net> wrote:
> "git --exec-path" presently prints out the highest priority path
> to find executable in. That's a what; i'm curious why and when it
> should be used. Basically i'm wondering if its still useful, and
> what, if anything, it should be printing.

git-gui uses it.  git-gui runs git-* by prefixing it with the
exec path.  It also scans the first line of the file if we are on
Windows and the "executable" doesn't end in ".exe" so it can figure
out what process to run it through.

So it really can't go away.

-- 
Shawn.

Re: intended use of "git --exec-path"?

[Scott Parish]

On Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 12:38:19AM -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:

> Scott Parish <sRp@srparish.net> wrote:
> > "git --exec-path" presently prints out the highest priority path
> > to find executable in. That's a what; i'm curious why and when it
> > should be used. Basically i'm wondering if its still useful, and
> > what, if anything, it should be printing.
> 
> git-gui uses it.  git-gui runs git-* by prefixing it with the
> exec path.  It also scans the first line of the file if we are on
> Windows and the "executable" doesn't end in ".exe" so it can figure
> out what process to run it through.
> 
> So it really can't go away.

So it sounds like it might be more helpful for git to return its
PATH, so other programs can set their PATH or search for executables
accordingly.

sRp

-- 
Scott Parish
http://srparish.net/

Re: intended use of "git --exec-path"?

[David Symonds]

On 10/24/07, Scott Parish <sRp@srparish.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 12:38:19AM -0400, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:
>
> > Scott Parish <sRp@srparish.net> wrote:
> > > "git --exec-path" presently prints out the highest priority path
> > > to find executable in. That's a what; i'm curious why and when it
> > > should be used. Basically i'm wondering if its still useful, and
> > > what, if anything, it should be printing.
> >
> > git-gui uses it.  git-gui runs git-* by prefixing it with the
> > exec path.  It also scans the first line of the file if we are on
> > Windows and the "executable" doesn't end in ".exe" so it can figure
> > out what process to run it through.
> >
> > So it really can't go away.
>
> So it sounds like it might be more helpful for git to return its
> PATH, so other programs can set their PATH or search for executables
> accordingly.

You don't necessarily want to be monkeying around with $PATH if you're
trying to use a particular git installation (say, a build of next)
instead of your "proper" install, which is in your $PATH; if you call
/some/random/path/git-whatever, it should use the git tools in
/some/random/path/, not in $PATH.


Dave.

Re: intended use of "git --exec-path"?

[Andreas Ericsson]

Scott Parish wrote:
> "git --exec-path" presently prints out the highest priority path
> to find executable in. That's a what; i'm curious why and when it
> should be used. Basically i'm wondering if its still useful, and
> what, if anything, it should be printing.
> 

git supports having all its "helpers" in a separate path. Since
there were performance concerns with having scripts call the git
wrapper for every invocation of every git program, the --exec-path
option was added when the wrapper was rewritten in C.

Unless it's a very tight loop that runs non-builtin programs,
there's really no reason for scripts to use the git-whatever form
of commands, but the ability to do so should probably be retained
more or less forever. See 8e49d50388211a0f3e7286f6ee600bf7736f4814
for details.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231