Lacking a name for the fourth G-f-W config file

[PhilipOakley]

Git for Windows will search four config files, which is one more that on Linux (--local, --system, --global). This means users can't easily find the content of that 'hidden' file because, as yet it doesn't have a name. (see also #2304 4-Oct-19)

This is on my todo list but folks can chip in...

• I was not able to find an open or closed issue matching what I'm seeing

Setup

• Which version of Git for Windows are you using? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

$ git --version --build-options

git version 2.23.0.windows.1.21.g947f504ebe8.dirty
cpu: x86_64
built from commit: 947f504ebe8fc780465d92bde25f3b576bf2f21f
sizeof-long: 4
sizeof-size_t: 8

• Which version of Windows are you running? Vista, 7, 8, 10? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit? (W10 64 bit)

$ cmd.exe /c ver

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17763.775]

• What options did you set as part of the installation? Or did you choose the
  defaults?

# One of the following:
> type "C:\Program Files\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
> type "C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
> type "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Programs\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
$ cat /etc/install-options.txt

Editor Option: Notepad++
Custom Editor Path:
Path Option: BashOnly
SSH Option: OpenSSH
Tortoise Option: false
CURL Option: OpenSSL
CRLF Option: CRLFAlways
Bash Terminal Option: MinTTY
Performance Tweaks FSCache: Enabled
Use Credential Manager: Enabled
Enable Symlinks: Disabled
Enable Builtin Interactive Add: Enabled

• Any other interesting things about your environment that might be related
  to the issue you're seeing?

SDK

Details

• Which terminal/shell are you running Git from? e.g Bash/CMD/PowerShell/other

Bash

• What commands did you run to trigger this issue? If you can provide a
  Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example
  this will help us understand the issue.

git config -l --show-origin
git config -l --show-origin --local
git config -l --show-origin --system
git config -l --show-origin --global

• What did you expect to occur after running these commands?

that the first command would only list what was shown in the other three.

• What actually happened instead?

It listed an extra config location...

file:"C:\ProgramData/Git/config"

Also noted that some of the locations are quoted and others not.

In particular this command from here get's caught for the regular install's 'Program Files' directory.

git config --list --show-origin | awk '{print $1}' | uniq

• If the problem was occurring with a specific repository, can you provide the
  URL to that repository to help us with testing?

n/a

[ROGERSM94]

I might have some time to chip in on this, this or next weekend if you're looking for help

[dscho]

To be quite honest, I am not enthusiastic about an explicit flag to edit this file. It is not intended for that purpose. It is intended to share Git for Windows' settings with other Git implementations, and I am strongly considering moving that file back to C:\Program Files\Git because of the confusion caused by the separate location.

[PhilipOakley]

Hi @dscho
That shift of the file back to the C:\Program Files\Git (or wherever for the SDK) would be good as long as it is part of the three existing files.

If it is still a 4th file, then we will still need a way of accessing it (i.e. telling folks what it is and where it is).

I had the situation that for my copy of the SDK Git

#collated list from git config -l
core.autocrlf=false
core.autocrlf=true
core.autocrlf=true
core.autocrlf=True

$ git config --get-all --show-origin core.autocrlf | sort
file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       true
file:.git/config        false
file:C:/git-sdk-64/mingw64/etc/gitconfig        true
file:C:/Users/phili/.gitconfig  True

so it all felt rather odd for working out what was happening!

There is still (separately) the minor issue of quoting spaces for the --show-origin filenames when using the regular Git stored in file:C:/Program Files/Git/mingw64/etc/gitconfig, which may be an easier first fix for @ROGERSM94 (it is so that https://www.onwebsecurity.com/configuration/git-on-windows-location-of-global-configuration-file.html suggestion of git config --list --show-origin | awk '{print $1}' | uniq works)

[PhilipOakley]

The other improvement (@ROGERSM94) would be to extend the --show-origin to say which config file (global, system, worktree or local) the config file origin refers to, maybe behind a further option --show-type.

This would also implicitly show if there were configs in place that did not come from the regular config files.

[dscho]

That shift of the file back to the C:\Program Files\Git (or wherever for the SDK) would be good as long as it is part of the three existing files.

Yes, indeed. I am thinking about moving the system config from /mingw64/etc/gitconfig to /etc/gitconfig.

I had the situation that for my copy of the SDK Git

#collated list from git config -l
core.autocrlf=false
core.autocrlf=true
core.autocrlf=true
core.autocrlf=True

$ git config --get-all --show-origin core.autocrlf | sort
file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       true
file:.git/config        false
file:C:/git-sdk-64/mingw64/etc/gitconfig        true
file:C:/Users/phili/.gitconfig  True

so it all felt rather odd for working out what was happening!

And the --show-origin option was the tool that helped. Reducing the number to 3 config files would not have helped.

[PhilipOakley]

And the --show-origin option was the tool that helped. Reducing the number to 3 config files would not have helped.

It only help partially, as I also had to go through the three named locations to find out which was the odd ball (un-named) file, and then wonder "Why is that one even there?".

One has to remember that most users won't bother to report to us the issues they see, hence my apparent pedanticism. At least we'd be able to document it cleanly (IIUC it's all about UAC issues..)