Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] Ensure consistent usage of mergetool.keepBackup in git

From: Charles Bailey <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:04:35 +0100

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 01:18:44AM -0700, David Aguilar wrote:
> On  0, David Aguilar <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > 
> > It /seems/ like the docs and completion should be updated.
> 
> Though my guess is as good as any....
> I'd rather hear someone else's opinion.
> 
> $ git log -p 44c36d1c
> commit 44c36d1ccc9a40bfb31910dfd7e18d59fa8be502
> Author: Charles Bailey <[email-masked]>
> Date:   Thu Feb 21 23:30:02 2008 +0000
> 
>     Tidy up git mergetool's backup file behaviour
>     
>     Currently a backup pre-merge file with conflict markers is sometimes
>     kept with a .orig extenstion and sometimes removed depending on the
>     particular merge tool used.
>     
>     This patch makes the handling consistent across all merge tools and
>     configurable via a new mergetool.keepBackup config variable
>     
>     Signed-off-by: Charles Bailey <[email-masked]>
>     Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
> 
> 
> The commit comment says mergetool.keepBackup, even though the code always
> had it as merge.keepBackup.

Not going by the commit message, but rather by the documentation I do
believe that mergetool.keepBackup should have been the correct
variable to use. I'm not sure why I missed this at the time.

I seem to remember looking for existing consistency in this before.
Originally I was going on the premise that merge.* were things that
were general between merges and all mergetools whereas mergetool.*
were things that were merge tool specific. Subsequently, it was more
natural to have mergetool.$tool.* for things that were tool specifit
and to have mergetool.* as general mergetool specific settings,
leaving merge.* as merge specific settings with the exception of
merge.tool which is obviously specific to git mergetool, but is in the
merge.* section.

-- 
Charles Bailey
http://ccgi.hashpling.plus.com/blog/