Confused about git-config's description of escaping

Confused about git-config's description of escaping

[Kyle Meyer]

When describing the configuration syntax, the git-config manpage says
this about the value:

    Inside double quotes, double quote " and backslash \ characters must
    be escaped: use \" for " and \\ for \.

I find the "Inside double quotes" part confusing because escaping these
characters appears to also be needed when there are no enclosing double
quotes:

    $ nl .git/config | tail -n2
         6	[a]
         7		b = c"d

    $ git config a.b
    fatal: bad config line 7 in file .git/config

    $ git version
    git version 2.28.0.236.gb10cc79966

I was going to suggest dropping the "Inside double quotes" qualifier.
Perhaps

    Double quote " and backslash \ characters in the value must
    be escaped: use \" for " and \\ for \.

But it looks like that's pretty close to how this sentence was written
before ff5507ed2a (Documentation/config.txt: describe the structure
first and then meaning, 2015-03-04), which makes me think that I'm
misreading the description or otherwise missing something.

What's gained by specifying "Inside double quotes"?  Are there any cases
where a value, whether enclosed in double quotes or not, doesn't need "
or \ characters escaped?

Re: Confused about git-config's description of escaping

[Junio C Hamano]

Kyle Meyer <kyle@kyleam.com> writes:

> When describing the configuration syntax, the git-config manpage says
> this about the value:
>
>     Inside double quotes, double quote " and backslash \ characters must
>     be escaped: use \" for " and \\ for \.
>
> I find the "Inside double quotes" part confusing because escaping these
> characters appears to also be needed when there are no enclosing double
> quotes:
>
>     $ nl .git/config | tail -n2
>          6	[a]
>          7		b = c"d
>
>     $ git config a.b
>     fatal: bad config line 7 in file .git/config
>
>     $ git version
>     git version 2.28.0.236.gb10cc79966
>
> I was going to suggest dropping the "Inside double quotes" qualifier.
> Perhaps
>
>     Double quote " and backslash \ characters in the value must
>     be escaped: use \" for " and \\ for \.
>
> But it looks like that's pretty close to how this sentence was written
> before ff5507ed2a (Documentation/config.txt: describe the structure
> first and then meaning, 2015-03-04), which makes me think that I'm
> misreading the description or otherwise missing something.
>
> What's gained by specifying "Inside double quotes"?  Are there any cases
> where a value, whether enclosed in double quotes or not, doesn't need "
> or \ characters escaped?

Perhaps there is another description missing, either from the
written docs or from your reading of it, that says that a value with
these characters must be enclosed in double quotes pair?

Re: Confused about git-config's description of escaping

[Kyle Meyer]

Junio C Hamano writes:

> Kyle Meyer <kyle@kyleam.com> writes:
[...]
>> What's gained by specifying "Inside double quotes"?  Are there any cases
>> where a value, whether enclosed in double quotes or not, doesn't need "
>> or \ characters escaped?
>
> Perhaps there is another description missing, either from the
> written docs or from your reading of it, that says that a value with
> these characters must be enclosed in double quotes pair?

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not spotting anything in the current git-config documentation that
says that.  And it would be an incorrect description of the syntax,
wouldn't it?  When entering a value containing a quote with 'git
config', enclosing double quotes aren't inserted:

    $ git config a.b 'c"d'
    $ tail -n2 .git/config
    [a]
    	b = c\"d
    $ git config a.b
    c"d

So, it seems valid for a value to have these characters escaped without
having them enclosed in a pair of double quotes.