Where do the settings in my Git configuration come from?

Question

I've noticed that I have two listings for core.autocrlf when I run git config -l

$ git config -l
core.symlinks=false
core.autocrlf=false
color.diff=auto
color.status=auto
color.branch=auto
color.interactive=true
pack.packsizelimit=2g
help.format=html
http.sslcainfo=/bin/curl-ca-bundle.crt
sendemail.smtpserver=/bin/msmtp.exe
diff.astextplain.textconv=astextplain
rebase.autosquash=true
user.name=name
[email protected]
core.autocrlf=true

Those last three (from user.name down) are the only ones in my C:\users\username\.gitconfig file. Where are all of the other ones coming from? Why is core.autocrlf listed twice?

This is with MSysGit 1.8.3, and I also have Sourcetree installed (Windows 7). In Sourcetree I have unchecked the "Allow Sourcetree to modify your global Git config files"

Answer 1

Git checks four places for a configuration file:

1. Your machine's system .gitconfig file.
2. Your user .gitconfig file located at ~/.gitconfig.
3. A second user-specific configuration file located at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config or $HOME/.config/git/config.
4. The local repository's configuration file .git/config.

The settings cascade in the following order, with each file adding or overriding settings defined in the file above it.

1. System configuration.
2. User configuration.
3. Repository-specific configuration.

You can see what each file has defined using the following commands:

# System, applies to entire machine and all users
$ git config --system --list
$ git config --system --edit

# User defined
$ git config --global --list
$ git config --global --edit

You can see what just the repository-specific file has defined by opening up the file .git/config for that repository.

If you're using MSysGit on Windows, you'll probably find your user ~/.gitconfig file where ever %homepath% points to if you use echo %homepath% from a Windows command prompt.

From the documentation for git config:

If not set explicitly with --file, there are four files where git config will search for configuration options:

• $(prefix)/etc/gitconfig

  System-wide configuration file.

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config

Second user-specific configuration file. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set or empty, $HOME/.config/git/config will be used. Any single-valued variable set in this file will be overwritten by whatever is in ~/.gitconfig. It is a good idea not to create this file if you sometimes use older versions of Git, as support for this file was added fairly recently.

• ~/.gitconfig

User-specific configuration file. Also called "global" configuration file.

• $GIT_DIR/config

  Repository specific configuration file.

If no further options are given, all reading options will read all of these files that are available. If the global or the system-wide configuration file are not available they will be ignored. If the repository configuration file is not available or readable, git config will exit with a non-zero error code. However, in neither case will an error message be issued.

The files are read in the order given above, with last value found taking precedence over values read earlier. When multiple values are taken then all values of a key from all files will be used.

All writing options will per default write to the repository specific configuration file. Note that this also affects options like --replace-all and --unset. git config will only ever change one file at a time.

You can override these rules either by command-line options or by environment variables. The --global and the --system options will limit the file used to the global or system-wide file respectively. The GIT_CONFIG environment variable has a similar effect, but you can specify any filename you want.