Subject: Re: [PATCH] [GSoC] Add configuration options for some commonly used command-line options

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2015 13:24:06 -0700

Koosha Khajehmoogahi <[email-masked]> writes:

> This patch adds a 'showmerges' config. option for git-log.
> This option determines whether the log should contain merge
> commits or not. In essence, if this option is set to true,
> git-log will be run as 'git-log --no-merges'.
>
> Signed-off-by: Koosha Khajehmoogahi <[email-masked]>
> ---
>  Documentation/config.txt | 3 +++
>  builtin/log.c            | 8 ++++++++
>  2 files changed, 11 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
> index 1530255..7775b8c 100644
> --- a/Documentation/config.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/config.txt
> @@ -1735,6 +1735,9 @@ log.showroot::
>  	Tools like linkgit:git-log[1] or linkgit:git-whatchanged[1], which
>  	normally hide the root commit will now show it. True by default.
>  
> +log.showmerges::
> +	If true, merges will be shown in the log list. True by default.

When you have to help your colleague by inspecting the history in
her repository, and your colleague has this set to false, and you do
want your "git log" to show merge commits, how would you override
this setting?

	git log --merges

is not it.

Avoid introducing a configuration that users cannot override it from
the command line.  If there is a way to override (and for the
purpose of this discussion, "git -c log.showmerges=yes" does not
count), document it here.

Tests need to make sure that (1) with configuration without command
line override, the various settings of the variable give behaviour
you wanted to give, and (2) with configuration with command line
override, the values set to the variable does not have any effect to
the behaviour (i.e. the command line override wins).

Thanks.