CONFIGURATION FILE
------------------
The git configuration file contains a number of variables that affect
the git command's behavior. `.git/config` file for each repository
is used to store the information for that repository, and
`$HOME/.gitconfig` is used to store per user information to give
fallback values for `.git/config` file. The file `/etc/gitconfig`
can be used to store system-wide defaults.
They can be used by both the git plumbing
and the porcelains. The variables are divided into sections, where
in the fully qualified variable name the variable itself is the last
dot-separated segment and the section name is everything before the last
dot. The variable names are case-insensitive and only alphanumeric
characters are allowed. Some variables may appear multiple times.
Syntax
~~~~~~
The syntax is fairly flexible and permissive; whitespaces are mostly
ignored. The '#' and ';' characters begin comments to the end of line,
blank lines are ignored.
The file consists of sections and variables. A section begins with
the name of the section in square brackets and continues until the next
section begins. Section names are not case sensitive. Only alphanumeric
characters, `-` and `.` are allowed in section names. Each variable
must belong to some section, which means that there must be section
header before first setting of a variable.
Sections can be further divided into subsections. To begin a subsection
put its name in double quotes, separated by space from the section name,
in the section header, like in example below:
--------
[section "subsection"]
--------
Subsection names can contain any characters except newline (doublequote
`"` and backslash have to be escaped as `\"` and `\\`,
respectively) and are case sensitive. Section header cannot span multiple
lines. Variables may belong directly to a section or to a given subsection.
You can have `[section]` if you have `[section "subsection"]`, but you
don't need to.
There is also (case insensitive) alternative `[section.subsection]` syntax.
In this syntax subsection names follow the same restrictions as for section
name.
All the other lines are recognized as setting variables, in the form
'name = value'. If there is no equal sign on the line, the entire line
is taken as 'name' and the variable is recognized as boolean "true".
The variable names are case-insensitive and only alphanumeric
characters and `-` are allowed. There can be more than one value
for a given variable; we say then that variable is multivalued.
Leading and trailing whitespace in a variable value is discarded.
Internal whitespace within a variable value is retained verbatim.
The values following the equals sign in variable assign are all either
a string, an integer, or a boolean. Boolean values may be given as yes/no,
0/1 or true/false. Case is not significant in boolean values, when
converting value to the canonical form using '--bool' type specifier;
'git-config' will ensure that the output is "true" or "false".
String values may be entirely or partially enclosed in double quotes.
You need to enclose variable value in double quotes if you want to
preserve leading or trailing whitespace, or if variable value contains
beginning of comment characters (if it contains '#' or ';').
Double quote `"` and backslash `\` characters in variable value must
be escaped: use `\"` for `"` and `\\` for `\`.
The following escape sequences (beside `\"` and `\\`) are recognized:
`\n` for newline character (NL), `\t` for horizontal tabulation (HT, TAB)
and `\b` for backspace (BS). No other char escape sequence, nor octal
char sequences are valid.
Variable value ending in a `\` is continued on the next line in the
customary UNIX fashion.
Some variables may require special value format.
Example
~~~~~~~
# Core variables
[core]
; Don't trust file modes
filemode = false
# Our diff algorithm
[diff]
external = /usr/local/bin/diff-wrapper
renames = true
[branch "devel"]
remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/devel
# Proxy settings
[core]
gitProxy="ssh" for "kernel.org"
gitProxy=default-proxy ; for the rest
Variables
~~~~~~~~~
Note that this list is non-comprehensive and not necessarily complete.
For command-specific variables, you will find a more detailed description
in the appropriate manual page. You will find a description of non-core
porcelain configuration variables in the respective porcelain documentation.
core.fileMode::
If false, the executable bit differences between the index and
the working copy are ignored; useful on broken filesystems like FAT.
See linkgit:git-update-index[1]. True by default.
core.ignoreCygwinFSTricks::
This option is only used by Cygwin implementation of Git. If false,
the Cygwin stat() and lstat() functions are used. This may be useful
if your repository consists of a few separate directories joined in
one hierarchy using Cygwin mount. If true, Git uses native Win32 API
whenever it is possible and falls back to Cygwin functions only to
handle symbol links. The native mode is more than twice faster than
normal Cygwin l/stat() functions. True by default, unless core.filemode
is true, in which case ignoreCygwinFSTricks is ignored as Cygwin's
POSIX emulation is required to support core.filemode.
core.trustctime::
If false, the ctime differences between the index and the
working copy are ignored; useful when the inode change time
is regularly modified by something outside Git (file system
crawlers and some backup systems).
See linkgit:git-update-index[1]. True by default.
core.quotepath::
The commands that output paths (e.g. 'ls-files',
'diff'), when not given the `-z` option, will quote
"unusual" characters in the pathname by enclosing the
pathname in a double-quote pair and with backslashes the
same way strings in C source code are quoted. If this
variable is set to false, the bytes higher than 0x80 are
not quoted but output as verbatim. Note that double
quote, backslash and control characters are always
quoted without `-z` regardless of the setting of this
variable.
core.autocrlf::
If true, makes git convert `CRLF` at the end of lines in text files to
`LF` when reading from the filesystem, and convert in reverse when
writing to the filesystem. The variable can be set to
'input', in which case the conversion happens only while
reading from the filesystem but files are written out with
`LF` at the end of lines. Currently, which paths to consider
"text" (i.e. b
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