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gitlinux-mint

Cannot find gitconfig file

I just started learning about Linux and Git. Im using Linux Mint. I have Git and emacs installed via apt-get.

Im using the following tutorial https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-First-Time-Git-Setup

it says that there are configuration files in three different places:

  1. /etc/gitconfig file
  2. ~/.gitconfig or ~/.config/git/config file
  3. config file in the Git directory (that is, .git/config) of whatever repository you’re currently using.

I have just started with Git so assume that option 3) is not applicable

I checked both 1) and 2) - i just cannot locate the files anywhere

I googled this with no luck and did sudo find . -name in the root directory

Have no clue what is happening as when i run this

$ git config --global user.name "John Doe"
$ git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com

(i used my name surname above obviously)

it doesn't give me an error or anything - so where does it write this config data then?? where are these files?

Solution

  • As confirmed by the OP, any git config --global command will create/update ~/.gitconfig.

    But as it is an hidden file by default, you would need a ls -alrt to see it.
    git config --global -l will list its content.

    More generally, git config --list --show-origin shows all config files (and each line of the config data).
    With Git 2.26 (Q1 2020), you can add a --show-scope option

    git config --list --show-origin --show-scope

    That will also print the scope ("local", "global", etc) of all displayed config values.

    With Git 2.37 (Q3 2022), confirm that git config --show-scope does show worktree, in addition of local, global, system and command configs.

    See commit db7961e (07 Jun 2022) by Glen Choo (chooglen).
    (Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 21bb385, 13 Jun 2022)

    config: document and test the 'worktree' scope

    Signed-off-by: Glen Choo

    Test that "git config --show-scope"(man) shows the worktree scope, and add it to the list of scopes in Documentation/git-config.txt.

    "git config --help"(man) does not need to be updated because it already mentions worktree".

    git config now includes in its man page:

    (worktree, local, global, system, command).