2022-01-07
So in the last few posts we encountered two examples of 'dotfiles':
.zshrc and .vimrc (although if like me your Vim is actually Neovim,
then your .vimrc may actually be found at .config/nvim/init.vim).
You will notice the two things the filenames have in common: the initial
dot (.) and the ending rc. The rc stands for something like
'runtime configuration' (or perhaps just 'run commands'?), because of
course that is what these files do, they configure Zsh or Vim by being
read each time you run the program. And the dot (.) at the start of
the filename means that by conventional default they are not listed when
you ls the files in a directory.
Have a look for yourself:
cd ~ # change to your home directory
ls # list the normal files
ls -a # list **all** the files, including dotfiles
As you tweak your dotfiles to configure things to your taste, it becomes increasingly important to backup your configuration. For which the obvious solution is to use Git.
Except the problem is that usually the files tracked by a Git repository
are all located within the same folder, whereas in order for your
dotfiles to be read by their respective programs, they need to be in the
expected location: the home folder for Zsh's .zshrc and Vim's
.vimrc, the .config/nvim folder for NeoVim's init.vim, and so on.
Fortunately, it turns out that this isn't a problem, as you can set up a bare repository, which according to the documentation means that "instead of creating directory and placing the administrative files in directory/.git, [you] make the directory itself the $GIT_DIR".
# first create your repo on Github, then:
git clone --bare https://github.com/$USERNAME/.dotfiles $HOME/.dotfiles
When you are cloning a repository, "this obviously implies the
--no-checkout because there is nowhere to check out the working
tree"--but having cloned your .dotfiles repository, you can then set a
dotfiles alias which will run Git with your bare repository as the
git-dir and your home directory as the work-tree. You'll want to
save this alias in your .zshrc:
dotfiles='$(which git) --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles --work-tree=$HOME
Then, to make sure your status messages aren't overwhelmed with telling you about all the other files in your home directory which you don't want your dotfiles repository to track, you just need to configure it to not show untracked files.
dotfiles config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no
From there you can use the alias to add,
commit, branch, checkout, push and pull as you usually would
with any Git repository.
Credit for making this method known to the world belongs to StreakyCobra, and his comment on HackerNews, although he was at pains to clarify that he didn't invent it. And if this method doesn't appeal, the excellent Archlinux Wiki includes a multitude of other ways of managing your dotfiles.
My dotfiles repository is here, feel free to have a look!