Ralph Seichter authored Mar 12, 2024 and Junio C Hamano committed Mar 15, 2024

Introduce the ability to append comments to modifications
made using git-config. Example usage:

  git config --comment "changed via script" \
    --add safe.directory /home/alice/repo.git

based on the proposed patch, the output produced is:

  [safe]
    directory = /home/alice/repo.git #changed via script

Users need to be able to distinguish between config entries made
using automation and entries made by a human. Automation can add
comments containing a URL pointing to explanations for the change
made, avoiding questions from users as to why their config file
was changed by a third party.

The implementation ensures that a # character is unconditionally
prepended to the provided comment string, and that the comment
text is appended as a suffix to the changed key-value-pair in the
same line of text. Multi-line comments (i.e. comments containing
linefeed) are rejected as errors, causing Git to exit without
making changes.

Comments are aimed at humans who inspect or change their Git
config using a pager or editor. Comments are not meant to be
read or displayed by git-config at a later time.

Signed-off-by: Ralph Seichter <github@seichter.de>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>