Subject: [PATCH/RFC 0/4] config: read both home and xdg files for --global

From: "Delilah Ashley Wu via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2025 01:14:05 +0000

Hi!

As reported in [1]: `$HOME/.gitconfig` and `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config` are
both valid global config locations, but `git config list --global` only
includes the former in its output.

Suppose we have this config in `$HOME/.gitconfig`:

[home]
    config = true

And this config in `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config`:

[xdg]
    config = true

Then, to reproduce the issue that `--global` only shows the home config:

$ git config list --global --show-scope --show-origin
global  file:/Users/delilah/.gitconfig    home.config=true

Git correctly applies the XDG config in its effective configuration, but it
doesn't show up when `--global` is specified. We can confirm this by
checking the output without the `--global` flag:

$ git config list --show-scope --show-origin
global  file:/Users/delilah/.config/git/config    xdg.config=true
global  file:/Users/delilah/.gitconfig            home.config=true

The expected behaviour is both configs should be shown when `--global` is
specified, so we'd expect its output to look the same as above. This was
confirmed in [2], which quoted the `git config` documentation:

> OPTIONS
>     --global::
>         For writing options: write to global `~/.gitconfig` file
>         rather than the repository `.git/config`, write to
>         `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config` file if this file exists and the
>         `~/.gitconfig` file doesn't.
>
>         For reading options: read only from global `~/.gitconfig` and from
>         `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config` rather than from all available files.

The first patch fixes forward slash normalisation on Windows paths. The
second patch introduces tests and regression checks. The third and fourth
patches implement the fix to include both config files when `--global` is
specified. Johannes has kindly pre-reviewed this patch series via GitHub on
GitGitGadget #1938 [3]. You'll notice some force-pushes after the review,
but I only changed commit messages.

[1]:
https://lore.kernel.org/git/[email-masked]/
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/[email-masked]/
[3]: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/1938/

Thank you all for your time!
Delilah

Delilah Ashley Wu (4):
  cleanup_path: force forward slashes on Windows
  config: test home and xdg files in `list --global`
  config: read global scope via config_sequence
  config: keep bailing on unreadable global files

 builtin/config.c     | 12 ++++++++
 config.c             | 54 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
 config.h             |  2 ++
 path.c               | 10 +++++--
 t/t1300-config.sh    | 65 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 t/t1306-xdg-files.sh |  3 +-
 6 files changed, 128 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)

base-commit: ca2559c1d630eb4f04cdee2328aaf1c768907a9e
Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-1938%2Fdelilahw%2Flilah%2Ffix-config-list-global-home-and-xdg%2Fpatchset-v1
Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-1938/delilahw/lilah/fix-config-list-global-home-and-xdg/patchset-v1
Pull-Request: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/1938
-- 
gitgitgadget