On Saturday 2021-02-27 22:06, Junio C Hamano wrote:
Martin Nicolay <m.nicolay@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
*facepalm* The part about GIT_DIR setting the work-tree in addition to
the repository I hadn't read. How embarrasing.
I apoligize for my bad reading skills and wasting you time.
We would love to hear observations on which part of the
documentation was misleading and suggestions on how to make it
harder to misinterpret it.
There are multiple explanations regarding $DIR_DIR or --git-dir.
From git(1) two parts:
1)
--git-dir=<path>
Set the path to the repository (".git" directory). This can also be
controlled by setting the GIT_DIR environment variable. It can be
an absolute path or relative path to current working directory.
Specifying the location of the ".git" directory using this option
(or GIT_DIR environment variable) turns off the repository
discovery that tries to find a directory with ".git" subdirectory
(which is how the repository and the top-level of the working tree
are discovered), and tells Git that you are at the top level of the
working tree. If you are not at the top-level directory of the
working tree, you should tell Git where the top-level of the
working tree is, with the --work-tree=<path> option (or
GIT_WORK_TREE environment variable)
2)
GIT_DIR
If the GIT_DIR environment variable is set then it specifies a path
to use instead of the default .git for the base of the repository.
The --git-dir command-line option also sets this value.
The first part mentions the dual effect of setting git-dir, the second
not so.
As I had used GIT_DIR described in the second part, I feel vindicated ;-)
Hooray, instead of a software-bug I've found a documentation-bug.
My suggestion is to ammend the first sentence to something like "If the
GIT_DIR environment variable is set then it specifies a path to use
instead of the default .git for the base of the repository and also the
top-level directory of the working tree."
