On Fri, 2011-08-12 at 12:39 -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > Richard Purdie <rpurdie@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > >> Looking through the manuals/code, it suggests I should be able to do: > >> > >> GIT_CONFIG=/dev/null git XXX > >> > >> and all should work happily. It doesn't though. As an example, with a > >> ~/.gitconfig, "GIT_CONFIG=/dev/null git fetch --all" is clearly > >> accessing the file in ~ and then acting upon it. > > > > If the manual says the above is expected for any value of XXX, then that > > is a bug in the manual since mid 2008, I think. > > > > See dc87183 (Only use GIT_CONFIG in "git config", not other programs, > > 2008-06-30). > > > > I _think_ these days a workaround to force a known config is to set HOME > > to a value that has a known .gitconfig (or no such file), and decline > > usage of /etc/git.config by exporting GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM. > > Side note. Here is what dc87183 says: > > commit dc87183189b54441e315d35d48983d80ab085299 > Author: Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > Date: Mon Jun 30 03:37:47 2008 -0400 > > Only use GIT_CONFIG in "git config", not other programs > > For everything other than using "git config" to read or write a > git-style config file that isn't the current repo's config file, > GIT_CONFIG was actively detrimental. Rather than argue over which > programs are important enough to have work anyway, just fix all of > them at the root. > > Also removes GIT_LOCAL_CONFIG, which would only be useful for programs > that do want to use global git-specific config, but not the repo's own > git-specific config, and want to use some other, presumably > git-specific config. Despite being documented, I can't find any sign that > it was ever used. > > Signed-off-by: Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> > > It clearly explains the reason why LOCAL_CONFIG was removed (the reader > does not have to agree with "I can't find any sign that it was ever used", > though), but I cannot read from the first paragraph the reason why it was > felt necessary not to honor GIT_CONFIG in other programs, i.e. "was > actively detrimental" is not backed by any example in the paragraph. I can > sort of sense from "Rather than argue over..." that there may have been a > discussion on the list, and reading the archive from that timeframe may > reveal why many felt it was not a good idea. > > Daniel, do you recall the context? I went digging and this looks like as good a summary as any of the posts around that time: http://marc.info/?l=git&m=121476432303314&w=2 It sounds like if you specified GIT_CONFIG when making a clone it would end up writing the config file specified rather than .git/config. My problem isn't that I want to specify a specific .gitconfig file, I just need it to ignore the one in $HOME. I'm happy for the .git/config file to be used, in fact I need it to be. I noticed 8f323c00dd3c9b396b01a1aeea74f7dfd061bb7f was committed which removed GIT_CONFIG_NOGLOBAL support which is the other way to address the problem. Could we add that back? I appreciate I can set $HOME to something but that means creating an empty directory to point at and feels rather like a work around rather than a solution. Cheers, Richard -- Linux Foundation http://www.yoctoproject.org/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html