I proposed a variant that would be fully backwards-compatible (don't know who might rely on the functionality http://xkcd.com/1172/ ) however I'd be happy to see the change without additional config +1 ... that's a call for this list as maintainers.
The root of the issue is that tempfile::rename_tempfile ( https://github.com/git/git/blob/35f6318d44379452d8d33e880d8df0267b4a0cd0/tempfile.c#L288 ) relies on http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/rename.2.html which, only requires directory write permissions - not file write permissions. As you point out 'rm' is another example of this paradigm and it works exactly the same way. The point of confusion to users ( / my team) is that `git config` gives the appearance of editing / modifying the .gitconfig file in-place (where file permissions would be respected) however the actual implementation performs the equivalent of a rm+mv which only respects directory permissions. The `git config` command is only one of many that leverage that rename_tempfile function, if opting to respect file-level permissions across the board then the desired change is probably at that level rather than in config::git_config_set_multivar_in_file_gently which would only add respect for file-level permissions to the one command. Cheeers, On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:49 AM, Markus Hitter <[email protected]> wrote: > Am 08.11.2016 um 16:22 schrieb Jonathan Word: >> Proposal: >> >> Part 1) Add a .gitconfig variable to respect a read-only gitconfig >> file and optional "--force" override option for the `git config` >> command >> >> Such a gitconfig variable could be defined as: >> config.respectFileMode: [ "never", "allow-override", "always" ] >> [...] >> Thoughts? > > I'd consider disrespecting file permissions to be a bug. Only very few tools > allow to do so ('rm' is the only other one coming to mind right now), for > good reason. If they do, only with additional parameters or by additional > user interaction. Git should follow this strategy. > > Which means: respect file permissions, no additional config variable and only > if there's very substantial reason, add a --force. KISS. > > That said, disrespecting permissions requires additional code, so it'd be > interesting to know why this code was added. The relevant commit in the > git.git repo should tell. > > > Markus > > -- > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Dipl. Ing. (FH) Markus Hitter > http://www.jump-ing.de/
