Hi Duy, On Thu, 8 Nov 2018, Duy Nguyen wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 2:14 PM Johannes Schindelin > <johannes.schinde...@gmx.de> wrote: > > > > On Wed, 7 Nov 2018, Jeff King wrote: > > > > > All that said, if we're just interested in allowing this for config, > > > then we already have such a wrapper function: git_config_pathname(). > > > > Good point. I agree that `git_config_pathname()` is a better home for this > > feature than `expand_user_path()`. > > > > But now I have a really crazy idea: how about ~~/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt? > > The `~` prefix is *already* a reserved character, and while it would > > probably not be super intuitive to have `~~` be expanded to the runtime > > prefix, at least it would be less ambiguous than `$RUNTIME_PREFIX` (which > > *is* a valid directory name). > > One thing I had in mind when proposing $VARIABLE is that it opens up a > namespace for us to expand more things (*) for example $GIT_DIR (from > ~/.gitconfig). > > (*) but in a controlled way, it may look like an environment variable, > but we only accept a selected few. And it's only expanded at the > beginning of a path. I understand that desire, and I even agree. But the fact that it looks like an environment variable, but is not, is actually a point in favor of *not* doing this. It would violate the principle of least astonishment. The form `<RUNTIME_PREFIX>/abc/def` would not be confused with anything that it is not, I would think. The only thing against this form (at least that I can think of) is that some people use this way to talk about paths that vary between different setups, with the implicit assumption that the reader will "interpolate" this *before* applying. So for example, when I tell a user to please edit their <GIT_DIR>/config, I implicitly assume that they know to not type out, literally, <GIT_DIR> but instead fill in the correct path. Ciao, Dscho > > Of course, `~~` is also a valid directory name, but then, so is `~` and we > > do not have any way to specify *that* because `expand_user_path()` will > > always expand it to the home directory. Or am I wrong? Do we have a way to > > disable the expansion? > > > > Ciao, > > Dscho > > > > -- > Duy >
