Subject: Re: [PATCH/RFC 5/5] add tests for checking the behaviour of "unset.variable"

From: Matthieu Moy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 21:49:28 +0200

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> The "git config [--add] section.var value" UI, [...] finds the "var = value"
> definition at the end (or adds a "section" at the end and then adds
> [...]
>
> It is fine for single-valued ones that follow "the last one wins"
> semantics; "git config" would add the new definition at the end and
> that definition will win.

Not always.

git config foo.bar old-value
git config unset.variable foo.bar
git config foo.bar new-value

One could expect the new value to be taken into account, but it is not.

>> Well, the normal use-case for unset.variable is to put it in a local
>> config file, to unset a variable set in another, lower-priority file.
>
> I agree that is one major use case.
>
>> This common use-case works with the command-line "git config", and it
>> would be a pity to forbid the common use-case because of a particular,
>> unusual case.
>
> Either you are being incoherent or I am not reading you right.  If
> you said "If this common use-case worked with the command-line 'git
> config', it would be nice, but it would be a pity because it does
> not", I would understand.

I think you missed the "another" in my sentence above. The normal
use-case is to have foo.bar and unset.variable=foo.bar in different
files. In this case, you do not care about the position in file.

> in a repository whose .git/config does not have any unset.variable,
> you will add that _at the end_, which would undo what you did in
> your configuration file, not just what came before yours.  Even if
> you ignore more exotic cases, the command line is *not* working.

If my sysadmin has set foo.bar=boz in /etc/gitconfig, I can use

  git config [--global] unset.variable foo.bar

and it does work. Always.

Playing with the order of variables in-file is essentially useless OTOH
except for the include case you mentionned (if I want to unset a
variable in a file, I'll just delete or comment out the variable and I
don't need unset.variable).

Really, I don't see the point in making any complex plans to support the
useless part of the unset.variable feature. The reason it was designed
for already works, and $EDITOR does the job for other cases.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/