All the mail mirrored from lore.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed

From: Gregory Anders <greg@gpanders.com>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Syntax for specifying a command in git config
Date: Tue, 11 May 2021 12:07:46 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <YJrH8uqzapnpNEsb@gpanders.com> (raw)

Hi all,

Certain git config parameters (notably sendemail.smtpServer) expect an 
absolute path in order to use a command. If the value begins with a / 
git interprets it as a command; otherwise, it's interpreted it as a 
server hostname.

Using an absolute path is not very portable, however. If I want to have 
a common shared config file across multiple machines, each of which uses 
a command for smtpServer (e.g. msmtp) but installed at different 
locations, I have to modify the config file on each machine to update 
the absolute path.

Obviously this is not a *huge* deal, but it is a minor annoyance. I'm 
wondering if it would be possible to add a new syntax to config options 
like this. For example,

     [sendemail]
             smtpServer = !msmtp

The leading ! character says "the following value is a command that 
should be looked up in PATH". This is congruent with alias definitions, 
where the leading ! means to run the following value as a command 
directly instead of as a git subcommand.

This also is unambiguous since server hostnames will never begin with a 
! character.

I would be happy to attempt a patch at this change if it's something the 
git maintainers are open to. And if there are any other options that 
this would make sense for, I can add those too.

Thanks,

Greg

next             reply	other threads:[~2021-05-11 18:07 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-05-11 18:07 Gregory Anders [this message]
2021-05-11 18:17 ` Syntax for specifying a command in git config Jeff King
2021-05-11 22:56   ` Junio C Hamano
2021-05-12  0:32     ` Jeff King
2021-05-12  3:25       ` Junio C Hamano

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=YJrH8uqzapnpNEsb@gpanders.com \
    --to=greg@gpanders.com \
    --cc=git@vger.kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link

This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.