Re: [Bug report] includeIf config is not displayed in normal directories

[Stuart MacDonald <stuartm.coding@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2020 at 2:24 PM Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> Perhaps. I have no objection to adding an option like that. But I don't
> think it solves the fundamental issue in this bug report, which is
> asking "what will the config look like in a repository that I created at
> this path via git-init or git-clone?".

My fundamental issue was "git is using a conditionally included config
option core.sshCommand while outside of a git repository, but git config
is not displaying that config option when I ask it to". The good news is
given the discussion in this thread I can now say that I was labouring
under a misconception about how git clone works, and what I thought
was a bug is normal expected behaviour.

My old understanding of git clone:
- create sub-directory
- create subdir/.git and whatever initial states are needed
- clone the repo from origin into the directory
- all never having left $CWD

It's actually:
- create sub-directory
- cd subdir
- create ./.git and initial states
- clone the repo _while inside_ a gitdir
- cd ..

I would like to suggest that the documentation for either or both
git clone and includeIf could be improved to talk about this case so
that others having trouble with a conditionally included sshComand
during cloning will not have to relearn the wheel.

I believe my misunderstanding was partially misled by the fact that
despite the documentation for includeIf talking about it being a gitdir
the part of that path being matched is not itself within a git directory;
~/work/git/git/.git was the end result, ~/work being the matched on
part of the path and not in a git directory.

> Maybe Stuart really would prefer to change his config to "whenever I am
> in this directory root, repo or no, use this config". It does have weird
> corner cases around "git --git-dir=/path/to/repo", but doing that from
> another directory is perhaps rare enough that people using a cwd:
> conditional would be happy to ignore that.

I do not. Hopefully this thread will also assist future includeIf
trouble-havers.

Thanks all, very much appreciated. I consider the matter settled
as 'working as designed'.