Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/5] scalar: annotate config file with "set by scalar"

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2025 15:55:10 -0800

"Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]> writes:

> Add "# set by scalar" to the end of each config option to assist users
> in identifying why these config options were set in their repo.

The implementation is quite straight-forward, inlining expansion of
repo_config_set_gently() in the places that we want to add comment to.

If we had (a lot) more than two callsites, I would have suggested to
add a simple helper function, something like

    static int scalar_config_set(struct repository *r, const char *key, const char *value)
    {
	char *file = repo_git_path(r, "config");
        int res = repo_config_set_multivar_in_file_gently(r, file,
		key, value, NULL, " # set by scalar", 0);
	free(file);
	return res;
    }

and then the updates to the callers would have been absolute minimum.

Well, even with only two callsites, perhaps such a refactoring may
still have value in reducing the risk of typo in the comment.

> diff --git a/t/t9210-scalar.sh b/t/t9210-scalar.sh
> index bd6f0c40d2..43c210a23d 100755
> --- a/t/t9210-scalar.sh
> +++ b/t/t9210-scalar.sh
> @@ -210,6 +210,9 @@ test_expect_success 'scalar reconfigure' '
>  	GIT_TRACE2_EVENT="$(pwd)/reconfigure" scalar reconfigure -a &&
>  	test_path_is_file one/src/cron.txt &&
>  	test true = "$(git -C one/src config core.preloadIndex)" &&
> +	test_grep "preloadIndex = true # set by scalar" one/src/.git/config &&
> +	test_grep "excludeDecoration = refs/prefetch/\* # set by scalar" one/src/.git/config &&
> +
>  	test_subcommand git maintenance start <reconfigure &&
>  	test_subcommand ! git maintenance unregister --force <reconfigure &&

Looks good.