Subject: Re: Need to set GIT_WORK_TREE when setting GIT_DIR !?

From: Frédéric Heitzmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:13:52 +0100

Hi all,

My initial mistake was that I unintenionnaly created a bare repo (which 
is really not what I want to do).
If I change that  - GIt_DIR=.gita git init --no-bare - everything runs fine.

Lessons learned :

1/ the kind of repo  - bare or not bare - that git init creates depends 
on GIT_DIR.
This _is_ documented - I should have read more carefully - but it is 
surprising for someone not aware of the history of GIT_DIR, 
GIT_WORK_TREE, and so on.
Don't know if it 's worth changing this semantic though.
I let more experienced git hackers decide on this.

2/ Calling a git command that needs a working tree (add, status, commit, 
...) in a bare repo should probably trigger a more explicit message. 
Using the current directory if GIT_WORK_TREE is not set would actually 
hide a potential configuration problem.

Thanks for your help,
--
Fred