It took way too long for me to find the syntax expected for a gitfile. My search engine found the gitglossary manpage which defined the term but had no hints about syntax. Thus here I add a mention of gitrepository-layout. Once I somehow found gitrepository-layout, I searched for "gitfile" in there, but had no matches. It took a moment of discouragement and a minute or so of actually reading to find the info I was looking for. Thus here I add the part "[This mechanism is] called a 'gitfile'" in hopes that future readers will find it in mere seconds and without discouragement. Maybe it even helps search engines find it. Ideally, someone else may add a mention of gitrepository-layout in the "fatal: invalid gitfile format:" error message, which is what sent me on my journey initially, or even add a stub man page named "gitfile". Based on the maint branch for maximum compatibility. Signed-off-by: Marcel Krause <mk+copyleft@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/gitrepository-layout.txt | 8 ++++---- Documentation/glossary-content.txt | 1 + 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/gitrepository-layout.txt b/Documentation/gitrepository-layout.txt index 1a2ef4c150..c52b8564e3 100644 --- a/Documentation/gitrepository-layout.txt +++ b/Documentation/gitrepository-layout.txt @@ -23,10 +23,10 @@ A Git repository comes in two different flavours: *Note*: Also you can have a plain text file `.git` at the root of your working tree, containing `gitdir: <path>` to point at the real -directory that has the repository. This mechanism is often used for -a working tree of a submodule checkout, to allow you in the -containing superproject to `git checkout` a branch that does not -have the submodule. The `checkout` has to remove the entire +directory that has the repository. This mechanism is called a 'gitfile' +and is often used for a working tree of a submodule checkout, to allow +you in the containing superproject to `git checkout` a branch that +does not have the submodule. The `checkout` has to remove the entire submodule working tree, without losing the submodule repository. These things may exist in a Git repository. diff --git a/Documentation/glossary-content.txt b/Documentation/glossary-content.txt index 5a537268e2..e5f55bf670 100644 --- a/Documentation/glossary-content.txt +++ b/Documentation/glossary-content.txt @@ -184,6 +184,7 @@ current branch integrates with) obviously do not work, as there is no [[def_gitfile]]gitfile:: A plain file `.git` at the root of a working tree that points at the directory that is the real repository. + See linkgit:gitrepository-layout for the syntax. [[def_grafts]]grafts:: Grafts enables two otherwise different lines of development to be joined -- 2.25.1
