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authorLibravatar Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>2021-07-24 22:06:53 +0000
committerLibravatar Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>2021-07-26 12:17:16 -0700
commite394a16023cbb62784e380f70ad8a833fb960d68 (patch)
treeb358bbb33958aa3caadb72d35150d68b37733014 /Documentation
parentUse a better name for the function interpolating paths (diff)
downloadtgif-e394a16023cbb62784e380f70ad8a833fb960d68.tar.xz
interpolate_path(): allow specifying paths relative to the runtime prefix
Ever since Git learned to detect its install location at runtime, there was the slightly awkward problem that it was impossible to specify paths relative to said location. For example, if a version of Git was shipped with custom SSL certificates to use, there was no portable way to specify `http.sslCAInfo`. In Git for Windows, the problem was "solved" for years by interpreting paths starting with a slash as relative to the runtime prefix. However, this is not correct: such paths _are_ legal on Windows, and they are interpreted as absolute paths in the same drive as the current directory. After a lengthy discussion, and an even lengthier time to mull over the problem and its best solution, and then more discussions, we eventually decided to introduce support for the magic sequence `%(prefix)/`. If a path starts with this, the remainder is interpreted as relative to the detected (runtime) prefix. If built without runtime prefix support, Git will simply interpolate the compiled-in prefix. If a user _wants_ to specify a path starting with the magic sequence, they can prefix the magic sequence with `./` and voilĂ , the path won't be expanded. Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/config.txt9
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index bf82766a6a..0c0e6b859f 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -298,6 +298,15 @@ pathname::
tilde expansion happens to such a string: `~/`
is expanded to the value of `$HOME`, and `~user/` to the
specified user's home directory.
++
+If a path starts with `%(prefix)/`, the remainder is interpreted as a
+path relative to Git's "runtime prefix", i.e. relative to the location
+where Git itself was installed. For example, `%(prefix)/bin/` refers to
+the directory in which the Git executable itself lives. If Git was
+compiled without runtime prefix support, the compiled-in prefix will be
+subsituted instead. In the unlikely event that a literal path needs to
+be specified that should _not_ be expanded, it needs to be prefixed by
+`./`, like so: `./%(prefix)/bin`.
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