git/contrib
Johannes Schindelin caa5d9eab2 mingw: allow `git.exe` to be used instead of the "Git wrapper"
Git for Windows wants to add `git.exe` to the users' `PATH`, without
cluttering the latter with unnecessary executables such as `wish.exe`.
To that end, it invented the concept of its "Git wrapper", i.e. a tiny
executable located in `C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\git.exe` (originally a
CMD script) whose sole purpose is to set up a couple of environment
variables and then spawn the _actual_ `git.exe` (which nowadays lives in
`C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\bin\git.exe` for 64-bit, and the obvious
equivalent for 32-bit installations).

Currently, the following environment variables are set unless already
initialized:

- `MSYSTEM`, to make sure that the MSYS2 Bash and the MSYS2 Perl
  interpreter behave as expected, and

- `PLINK_PROTOCOL`, to force PuTTY's `plink.exe` to use the SSH
  protocol instead of Telnet,

- `PATH`, to make sure that the `bin` folder in the user's home
  directory, as well as the `/mingw64/bin` and the `/usr/bin`
  directories are included. The trick here is that the `/mingw64/bin/`
  and `/usr/bin/` directories are relative to the top-level installation
  directory of Git for Windows (which the included Bash interprets as
  `/`, i.e. as the MSYS pseudo root directory).

Using the absence of `MSYSTEM` as a tell-tale, we can detect in
`git.exe` whether these environment variables have been initialized
properly. Therefore we can call `C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\bin\git`
in-place after this change, without having to call Git through the Git
wrapper.

Obviously, above-mentioned directories must be _prepended_ to the `PATH`
variable, otherwise we risk picking up executables from unrelated Git
installations. We do that by constructing the new `PATH` value from
scratch, appending `$HOME/bin` (if `HOME` is set), then the MSYS2 system
directories, and then appending the original `PATH`.

Side note: this modification of the `PATH` variable is independent of
the modification necessary to reach the executables and scripts in
`/mingw64/libexec/git-core/`, i.e. the `GIT_EXEC_PATH`. That
modification is still performed by Git, elsewhere, long after making the
changes described above.

While we _still_ cannot simply hard-link `mingw64\bin\git.exe` to `cmd`
(because the former depends on a couple of `.dll` files that are only in
`mingw64\bin`, i.e. calling `...\cmd\git.exe` would fail to load due to
missing dependencies), at least we can now avoid that extra process of
running the Git wrapper (which then has to wait for the spawned
`git.exe` to finish) by calling `...\mingw64\bin\git.exe` directly, via
its absolute path.

Testing this is in Git's test suite tricky: we set up a "new" MSYS
pseudo-root and copy the `git.exe` file into the appropriate location,
then verify that `MSYSTEM` is set properly, and also that the `PATH` is
modified so that scripts can be found in `$HOME/bin`, `/mingw64/bin/`
and `/usr/bin/`.

This addresses https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/2283

Note: This keeps the same, hard-coded MSYSTEM platform support for CMake
as before, and introduces an `msystem' and `mingw-prefix` knob for Meson
(read: neither CMake nor Meson will automatically inherit the setting
from the current build environment).

Helped-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2026-09-10 05:19:43 -07:00
..
buildsystems mingw: allow `git.exe` to be used instead of the "Git wrapper" 2026-09-10 05:19:43 -07:00
completion bash-completions: add --max-count-oldest 2026-06-11 11:54:40 -07:00
contacts
credential Merge branch 'sn/osxkeychain-rust-universal' 2026-07-19 10:42:17 -07:00
diff-highlight diff-highlight: fetch all config with one process 2026-03-23 07:42:27 -07:00
fast-import
git-jump git-jump: pick a mode automatically when invoked without arguments 2026-05-21 23:01:04 +09:00
git-shell-commands
libgit-rs
libgit-sys
long-running-filter
stats
subtree parse-options: exit 0 on -h 2026-07-07 17:48:57 -07:00
vscode mingw: drop the build-system plumbing for nedmalloc 2026-05-09 11:19:23 +09:00
Makefile contrib: wire up osxkeychain in contrib/Makefile on macOS 2026-07-07 21:58:55 -07:00
README
meson.build contrib: move "coccinelle/" directory into "tools/" 2026-03-19 06:40:08 -07:00
rerere-train.sh

README

Contributed Software

Although these pieces are available as part of the official git
source tree, they are in somewhat different status.  The
intention is to keep interesting tools around git here, maybe
even experimental ones, to give users an easier access to them,
and to give tools wider exposure, so that they can be improved
faster.

I am not expecting to touch these myself that much.  As far as
my day-to-day operation is concerned, these subdirectories are
owned by their respective primary authors.  I am willing to help
if users of these components and the contrib/ subtree "owners"
have technical/design issues to resolve, but the initiative to
fix and/or enhance things _must_ be on the side of the subtree
owners.  IOW, I won't be actively looking for bugs and rooms for
enhancements in them as the git maintainer -- I may only do so
just as one of the users when I want to scratch my own itch.  If
you have patches to things in contrib/ area, the patch should be
first sent to the primary author, and then the primary author
should ack and forward it to me (git pull request is nicer).
This is the same way as how I have been treating gitk, and to a
lesser degree various foreign SCM interfaces, so you know the
drill.

I expect things that start their life in the contrib/ area
to graduate out of contrib/ once they mature, either by becoming
projects on their own, or moving to the toplevel directory.  On
the other hand, I expect I'll be proposing removal of disused
and inactive ones from time to time.

If you have new things to add to this area, please first propose
it on the git mailing list, and after a list discussion proves
there is general interest (it does not have to be a
list-wide consensus for a tool targeted to a relatively narrow
audience -- for example I do not work with projects whose
upstream is svn, so I have no use for git-svn myself, but it is
of general interest for people who need to interoperate with SVN
repositories in a way git-svn works better than git-svnimport),
submit a patch to create a subdirectory of contrib/ and put your
stuff there.

-jc