Re: Q: rational for $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config to be "non global" or just a bug?

[Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 5:05 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I think the documentation
>>
>>       ~/.gitconfig
>>               User-specific configuration file. Also called "global"
>>               configuration file.
>>
>> should be clarified --- e.g. it could say
>>
>>       $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config
>>       ~/.gitconfig
>>               User-specific configuration files. Because options in
>>               these files are not specific to any repository, thes
>>               are sometimes called global configuration files.
>
> Yeah, I think that makes sense.
>
>> As for "git config --global", I think the best thing would be to split
>> it into two options: something like "git config --user" and "git
>> config --xdg-user".  That way, it is unambiguous which configuration
>> file the user intends to inspect or modify.  When a user calls "git
>> config --global" and both files exist, it could warn that the command
>> is ambiguous.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>
> I actually thought that the plan was "you either have this, or the
> other one, never both at the same time" (and I think those who
> pushed the XDG thing in to the system made us favor it over the
> traditional one).  So as long as --global updates the one that
> exists, and updates XDG one when both or neither do, I think we
> should be OK.  And from that viewpoint, we definitely do not want
> two kinds of --global to pretend as if we support use of both at the
> same time.
>

It appears that we actually prefer ~/.gitconfig rather than XDG_CONFIG_HOME..

And at least based on current cursory testing on the command line, we
do both read and write to the proper location, assuming that
~/.gitconfig is preferred over $XDG_CONFIG_HOME.

Thanks,
Jake