Junio C Hamano wrote:
(2) also wondered why you were confused to think if your home directory
(for that matter, any higher directory, like /.gitattributes at the
filesystem root level) that is clearly outside of the project could
possibly affect what happens inside a project; and
Because it would be useful if it did; specifically, it would be
convenient to be able to say that ChangeLog files use
git-merge-changelog wherever they appear, and not have to repeat that in
all my projects. I didn't really expect it, but thought that maybe it
was designed to work that way.
(3) was puzzled why you do not have any patch to description of ignore
files (perhaps you do not even a similar confusion on them).
I hadn't really thought about them, but looking at the documentation now
I see that ignore files have the core.excludesfile config variable to
provide global ignores; there doesn't seem to be anything analogous for
attributes.
(1) To a long-time git person, "up to the root" is obviously talking
about the toplevel of the work tree, not "root of the filesystem",
but is it clear to _you_ (or do you think it would be clear to
somebody else without much previous exposure to git)?
It seems clear enough, as it would be pointless to say it if it meant
the root of the filesystem.
(2) If not, I think we should come up with a good wording and use that in
both. How does the "toplevel of the work tree" sound for that
purpose?
Sure, I'll use that.
Use the term "toplevel of the work tree" in gitattributes.txt and
gitignore.txt to define the limits of the search for those files.
Signed-off-by: Jason Merrill <jason@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/gitattributes.txt | 6 +++---
Documentation/gitignore.txt | 4 ++--
2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/gitattributes.txt b/Documentation/gitattributes.txt
index 55668e3..b762bba 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitattributes.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitattributes.txt
@@ -60,9 +60,9 @@ same as in `.gitignore` files; see linkgit:gitignore[5].
When deciding what attributes are assigned to a path, git
consults `$GIT_DIR/info/attributes` file (which has the highest
precedence), `.gitattributes` file in the same directory as the
-path in question, and its parent directories (the further the
-directory that contains `.gitattributes` is from the path in
-question, the lower its precedence).
+path in question, and its parent directories up to the toplevel of the
+work tree (the further the directory that contains `.gitattributes`
+is from the path in question, the lower its precedence).
If you wish to affect only a single repository (i.e., to assign
attributes to files that are particular to one user's workflow), then
diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
index 59321a2..7df3cef 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
@@ -31,8 +31,8 @@ precedence, the last matching pattern decides the outcome):
* Patterns read from a `.gitignore` file in the same directory
as the path, or in any parent directory, with patterns in the
- higher level files (up to the root) being overridden by those in
- lower level files down to the directory containing the file.
+ higher level files (up to the toplevel of the work tree) being overridden
+ by those in lower level files down to the directory containing the file.
These patterns match relative to the location of the
`.gitignore` file. A project normally includes such
`.gitignore` files in its repository, containing patterns for
--
1.6.2.2