Subject: Re: [PATCH] init - Honour the global core.filemode setting

From: Torsten Bögershausen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 18:54:16 +0200

On 2014-10-02 19.02, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Torsten Bögershausen <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
>> On 2014-10-01 19.10, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>> Hilco Wijbenga <[email-masked]> writes:
>>>
>>>> Perhaps I completely misunderstand the meaning of core.filemode but I
>>>> thought it determined whether Git cared about changes in file
>>>> properties?
>>>
>>> By setting it to "false", you tell Git that the filesystem you
>>> placed the repository does not correctly represent the filemode
>>> (especially the executable bit).
>>>
>>> "core.fileMode" in "git config --help" reads:
>>>
>>>        core.fileMode
>>>            If false, the executable bit differences between the
>>>            index and the working tree are ignored; useful on broken
>>>            filesystems like FAT. See git-update- index(1).
>>
>> Out of my head: Could the following be a starting point:
>>
>>         core.fileMode
>>             If false, the executable bit differences between the
>>             index and the working tree are ignored.
>>             This may be usefull when visiting a cygwin repo with a non-cygwin
>>             Git client. (should we mention msysgit ? should we mention JGit/EGit ?)
> 
> Between these two sentences, there may still be the same cognitive
> gap that may have lead to the original confusion.
> 
> The first sentence says what happens, as it should.
> 
> But it is not directly clear what makes the executable bit differ
> and when it is a useful thing to ignore the differences, so the
> second sentence that says "This may be useful" does not give the
> reader very much.
> 
Clearly a major improvement.

Does this (still) include the original line
"See linkgit:git-update-index[1]"

which helps the user to add *.sh files "executable" to the index, even if
core.filemode is false ?
One minor improvement below.

> Here is my attempt.
> 
> 	Tells Git if the executable bit of files in the working tree
> 	is to be honored.
> 
> 	Some filesystems lose the executable bit when a file that is
> 	marked as executable is checked out, or checks out an
> 	non-executable file with executable bit on.  "git init" and
> 	"git clone" probe the filesystem to see if it records
> 	executable bit correctly when they create a new repository
> 	and this variable is automatically set as necessary.
> 
>         A repository, however, may be on a filesystem that records
>         the filemode correctly, and this variable is set to 'true'
>         when created, but later may be made accessible from another
>         environment that loses the filemode (e.g. exporting ext4 via
>         CIFS mount, visiting a Cygwin managed repository with
>         MsysGit).  In such a case, it may be necessary to set this
>         variable to 'false'.
          ^^^^^^^^