path: root/Documentation/config.txt

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/gnu-diff -u"
		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.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. be subjected to the autocrlf mechanism) is
	decided purely based on the contents.

core.safecrlf::
	If true, makes git check if converting `CRLF` as controlled by
	`core.autocrlf` is reversible.  Git will verify if a command
	modifies a file in the work tree either directly or indirectly.
	For example, committing a file followed by checking out the
	same file should yield the original file in the work tree.  If
	this is not the case for the current setting of
	`core.autocrlf`, git will reject the file.  The variable can
	be set to "warn", in which case git will only warn about an
	irreversible conversion but continue the operation.
+
CRLF conversion bears a slight chance of corrupting data.
autocrlf=true will convert CRLF to LF during commit and LF to
CRLF during checkout.  A file that contains a mixture of LF and
CRLF before the commit cannot be recreated by git.  For text
files this is the right thing to do: it corrects line endings
such that we have only LF line endings in the repository.
But for binary files that are accidentally classified as text the
conversion can corrupt data.
+
If you recognize such corruption early you can easily fix it by
setting the conversion type explicitly in .gitattributes.  Right
after committing you still have the original file in your work
tree and this file is not yet corrupted.  You can explicitly tell
git that this file is binary and git will handle the file
appropriately.
+
Unfortunately, the desired effect of cleaning up text files with
mixed line endings and the undesired effect of corrupting binary
files cannot be distinguished.  In both cases CRLFs are removed
in an irreversible way.  For text files this is the right thing
to do because CRLFs are line endings, while for binary files
converting CRLFs corrupts data.
+
Note, this safety check does not mean that a checkout will generate a
file identical to the original file for a different setting of
`core.autocrlf`, but only for the current one.  For example, a text
file with `LF` would be accepted with `core.autocrlf=input` and could
later be checked out with `core.autocrlf=true`, in which case the
resulting file would contain `CRLF`, although the original file
contained `LF`.  However, in both work trees the line endings would be
consistent, that is either all `LF` or all `CRLF`, but never mixed.  A
file with mixed line endings would be reported by the `core.safecrlf`
mechanism.

core.symlinks::
	If false, symbolic links are checked out as small plain files that
	contain the link text. linkgit:git-update-index[1] and
	linkgit:git-add[1] will not change the recorded type to regular
	file. Useful on filesystems like FAT that do not support
	symbolic links. True by default.

core.gitProxy::
	A "proxy command" to execute (as 'command host port') instead
	of establishing direct connection to the remote server when
	using the git protocol for fetching. If the variable value is
	in the "COMMAND for DOMAIN" format, the command is applied only
	on hostnames ending with the specified domain string. This variable
	may be set multiple times and is matched in the given order;
	the first match wins.
+
Can be overridden by the 'GIT_PROXY_COMMAND' environment variable
(which always applies universally, without the special "for"
handling).

core.ignoreStat::
	The working copy files are assumed to stay unchanged until you
	mark them otherwise manually - Git will not detect the file changes
	by lstat() calls. This is useful on systems where those are very
	slow, such as Microsoft Windows.  See linkgit:git-update-index[1].
	False by default.

core.preferSymlinkRefs::
	Instead of the default "symref" format for HEAD
	and other symbolic reference files, use symbolic links.
	This is sometimes needed to work with old scripts that
	expect HEAD to be a symbolic link.

core.bare::
	If true this repository is assumed to be 'bare' and has no
	working directory associated with it.  If this is the case a
	number of commands that require a working directory will be
	disabled, such as linkgit:git-add[1] or linkgit:git-merge[1].
+
This setting is automatically guessed by linkgit:git-clone[1] or
linkgit:git-init[1] when the repository was created.  By default a
repository that ends in "/.git" is assumed to be not bare (bare =
false), while all other repositories are assumed to be bare (bare
= true).

core.worktree::
	Set the path to the working tree.  The value will not be
	used in combination with repositories found automatically in
	a .git directory (i.e. $GIT_DIR is not set).
	This can be overridden by the GIT_WORK_TREE environment
	variable and the '--work-tree' command line option. It can be
	a absolute path or relative path to the directory specified by
	--git-dir or GIT_DIR.
	Note: If --git-dir or GIT_DIR are specified but none of
	--work-tree, GIT_WORK_TREE and core.worktree is specified,
	the current working directory is regarded as the top directory
	of your working tree.

core.logAllRefUpdates::
	Enable the reflog. Updates to a ref <ref> is logged to the file
	"$GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>", by appending the new and old
	SHA1, the date/time and the reason of the update, but
	only when the file exists.  If this configuration
	variable is set to true, missing "$GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>"
	file is automatically created for branch heads.
+
This information can be used to determine what commit
was the tip of a branch "2 days ago".
+
This value is true by default in a repository that has
a working directory associated with it, and false by
default in a bare repository.

core.repositoryFormatVersion::
	Internal variable identifying the repository format and layout
	version.

core.sharedRepository::
	When 'group' (or 'true'), the repository is made shareable between
	several users in a group (making sure all the files and objects are
	group-writable). When 'all' (or 'world' or 'everybody'), the
	repository will be readable by all users, additionally to being
	group-shareable. When 'umask' (or 'false'), git will use permissions
	reported by umask(2). When '0xxx', where '0xxx' is an octal number,
	files in the repository will have this mode value. '0xxx' will override
	user's umask value, and thus, users with a safe umask (0077) can use
	this option. Examples: '0660' is equivalent to 'group'. '0640' is a
	repository that is group-readable but not group-writable.
	See linkgit:git-init[1]. False by default.

core.warnAmbiguousRefs::
	If true, git will warn you if the ref name you passed it is ambiguous
	and might match multiple refs in the .git/refs/ tree. True by default.

core.compression::
	An integer -1..9, indicating a default compression level.
	-1 is the zlib default. 0 means no compression,
	and 1..9 are various speed/size tradeoffs, 9 being slowest.
	If set, this provides a default to other compression variables,
	such as 'core.loosecompression' and 'pack.comp