Subject: Re: [PATCH] gitweb/INSTALL: GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM is for backward compatibility

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:26:00 -0700

Drew Northup wrote:

>                             This is unobtrusive yet to the point.

I agree with the spirit.

[...]
> --- a/Documentation/gitweb.conf.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/gitweb.conf.txt
> @@ -55,7 +55,8 @@ following order:
>     then fallback system-wide configuration file (defaults to
> '/etc/gitweb.conf').
> 
>  Values obtained in later configuration files override values obtained earlier
> -in the above sequence.
> +in the above sequence. This is different from many system-wide software
> +installations and will stay this way for historical reasons.

That makes it sound like the "per instance overrides common overrides
built-in" cascading is what is unusual and what we need to apologize
for.

How about something like the following?  (It uses a BUGS section to
make the warning easy to notice for people tracking down confusing
behavior by searching for "gitweb.conf".)

diff --git i/Documentation/gitweb.conf.txt w/Documentation/gitweb.conf.txt
index eb63631..ea0526e 100644
--- i/Documentation/gitweb.conf.txt
+++ w/Documentation/gitweb.conf.txt
@@ -857,6 +857,13 @@ adding the following lines to your gitweb configuration file:
 	$known_snapshot_formats{'zip'}{'disabled'} = 1;
 	$known_snapshot_formats{'tgz'}{'compressor'} = ['gzip','-6'];
 
+BUGS
+----
+Debugging would be easier if the fallback configuration file
+(`/etc/gitweb.conf`) and environment variable to override its location
+('GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM') had names reflecting their "fallback" role.
+The current names are kept to avoid breaking working setups.
+
 ENVIRONMENT
 -----------
 The location of per-instance and system-wide configuration files can be