git rev-parse --git-dir does report yield relative path to git directory, per documentation

git rev-parse --git-dir does report yield relative path to git directory, per documentation

[Jon Seymour]

Per this advice in git-rev-parse(1):

     Show $GIT_DIR if defined. Otherwise show the path to the .git
directory, relative to the current directory.

I had expected this:

cd /tmp &&
rm -rf foobar &&
mkdir foobar &&
cd foobar &&
git init &&
mkdir tmp &&
:> tmp/.gitignore &&
git add tmp &&
cd tmp &&
git rev-parse --git-dir

to report:

Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/foobar/.git/
../.git

but in actual fact it reports:

Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/foobar/.git/
/tmp/foobar/.git

git version 1.7.10.1.514.ge33c7ea

Am I misunderstanding the meaning of the term "relative" in quote above?

jon.

Re: git rev-parse --git-dir does report yield relative path to git directory, per documentation

[Junio C Hamano]

Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com> writes:

> Per this advice in git-rev-parse(1):
>
>      Show $GIT_DIR if defined. Otherwise show the path to the .git
> directory, relative to the current directory.
> ...

Unfortunate.  Here is what the commit that wrote the sentence says:

    commit 80d868b068b9e68a4aac91be578a8f097f45d8da
    Author: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
    Date:   Fri Nov 26 22:32:31 2010 +0700

        git-rev-parse.txt: clarify --git-dir

        The current behavior is often to print an absolute path rather than
        a ../../etc string, but callers must be ready to accept a relative
        path, too. The most common output is ".git" (from the toplevel of
        an ordinary work tree).

        Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
        Signed-off-by: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>
        Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

I am not sure what we were smoking.  I am guessing that it wanted to say
that the path is something you can feed to chdir(2) to go there, but it
should have done so without promising more than what it does.

Re: git rev-parse --git-dir does report yield relative path to git directory, per documentation

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi,

Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com> writes:

>> Per this advice in git-rev-parse(1):
>>
>>      Show $GIT_DIR if defined. Otherwise show the path to the .git
>> directory, relative to the current directory.
>> ...
[...]
> I am not sure what we were smoking.

Yeah, that text is pretty confusing.  Thanks for finding it.

The intent was:

	Show the path to the git repository database (usually $GIT_DIR or
	".git").  When relative, this path is relative to the current
	directory.

The point of that last part is that this is relative to the cwd when
rev-parse is called and not relative to the top level of the worktree.

[PATCH v1] Documentation: git-rev-parse: clarify that --git-dir does not necessarily show relative paths

[Jon Seymour]

The previous documentation was misleading because it lead the reader to believe
that --git-dir would always show a relative path when, in fact, the actual
behaviour does not guarantee this.

Rather, it was intended that the advice be given that if a relative path
is shown, then the path is relative to the current working directory and not some
other directory (for example, the root of the working tree).

Signed-off-by: Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
index f63b81a..4cc3e95 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
@@ -137,7 +137,8 @@ shown.  If the pattern does not contain a globbing character (`?`,
 
 --git-dir::
 	Show `$GIT_DIR` if defined. Otherwise show the path to
-	the .git directory, relative to the current directory.
+	the .git directory. The path shown, when relative, is
+	relative to the current working directory.
 +
 If `$GIT_DIR` is not defined and the current directory
 is not detected to lie in a git repository or work tree
-- 
1.7.10.1.514.ge33c7ea

Re: [PATCH v1] Documentation: git-rev-parse: clarify that --git-dir does not necessarily show relative paths

[Jonathan Nieder]

Jon Seymour wrote:

> --- a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
> @@ -137,7 +137,8 @@ shown.  If the pattern does not contain a globbing character (`?`,
>  
>  --git-dir::
>  	Show `$GIT_DIR` if defined. Otherwise show the path to
> -	the .git directory, relative to the current directory.
> +	the .git directory. The path shown, when relative, is
> +	relative to the current working directory.
>  +
>  If `$GIT_DIR` is not defined and the current directory
>  is not detected to lie in a git repository or work tree

Thanks for taking care of it.

I suppose I'd have used a subject line like the following for
brevity.

	rev-parse doc: --git-dir does not always show a relative path

For what it's worth, with or without that change,
Acked-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

Re: [PATCH v1] Documentation: git-rev-parse: clarify that --git-dir does not necessarily show relative paths

[Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy]

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com> wrote:
> @@ -137,7 +137,8 @@ shown.  If the pattern does not contain a globbing character (`?`,
>
>  --git-dir::
>        Show `$GIT_DIR` if defined. Otherwise show the path to
> -       the .git directory, relative to the current directory.
> +       the .git directory. The path shown, when relative, is
> +       relative to the current working directory.
>  +
>  If `$GIT_DIR` is not defined and the current directory
>  is not detected to lie in a git repository or work tree

Definitely an improvement. Thanks.
-- 
Duy

Re: [PATCH v1] Documentation: git-rev-parse: clarify that --git-dir does not necessarily show relative paths

[Junio C Hamano]

Thanks, both.