CONFIGURATION FILE
------------------

The Git configuration file contains a number of variables that affect
the Git commands' behavior. The files `.git/config` and optionally
`config.worktree` (see the "CONFIGURATION FILE" section of
linkgit:git-worktree[1]) in each repository are used to store the
configuration for that repository, and `$HOME/.gitconfig` is used to
store a per-user configuration as fallback values for the `.git/config`
file. The file `/etc/gitconfig` can be used to store a system-wide
default configuration.

The configuration variables are used by both the Git plumbing
and the porcelain commands. The variables are divided into sections, wherein
the fully qualified variable name of the variable itself is the last
dot-separated segment and the section name is everything before the last
dot. The variable names are case-insensitive, allow only alphanumeric
characters and `-`, and must start with an alphabetic character.  Some
variables may appear multiple times; we say then that the variable is
multivalued.

Syntax
~~~~~~

The syntax is fairly flexible and permissive.  Whitespace characters,
which in this context are the space character (SP) and the horizontal
tabulation (HT), are mostly ignored.  The '#' and ';' characters begin
comments to the end of line.  Blank lines are ignored.

The file consists of sections and variables.  A section begins with
the name of the section in square brackets and continues until the next
section begins.  Section names are case-insensitive.  Only alphanumeric
characters, `-` and `.` are allowed in section names.  Each variable
must belong to some section, which means that there must be a section
header before the first setting of a variable.

Sections can be further divided into subsections.  To begin a subsection
put its name in double quotes, separated by space from the section name,
in the section header, like in the example below:

--------
	[section "subsection"]

--------

Subsection names are case sensitive and can contain any characters except
newline and the null byte. Doublequote `"` and backslash can be included
by escaping them as `\"` and `\\`, respectively. Backslashes preceding
other characters are dropped when reading; for example, `\t` is read as
`t` and `\0` is read as `0`. Section headers cannot span multiple lines.
Variables may belong directly to a section or to a given subsection. You
can have `[section]` if you have `[section "subsection"]`, but you don't
need to.

There is also a deprecated `[section.subsection]` syntax. With this
syntax, the subsection name is converted to lower-case and is also
compared case sensitively. These subsection names follow the same
restrictions as section names.

All the other lines (and the remainder of the line after the section
header) are recognized as setting variables, in the form
'name = value' (or just 'name', which is a short-hand to say that
the variable is the boolean "true").
The variable names are case-insensitive, allow only alphanumeric characters
and `-`, and must start with an alphabetic character.

Whitespace characters surrounding `name`, `=` and `value` are discarded.
Internal whitespace characters within 'value' are retained verbatim.
Comments starting with either `#` or `;` and extending to the end of line
are discarded.  A line that defines a value can be continued to the next
line by ending it with a backslash (`\`);  the backslash and the end-of-line
characters are discarded.

If `value` needs to contain leading or trailing whitespace characters,
it must be enclosed in double quotation marks (`"`).  Inside double quotation
marks, double quote (`"`) and backslash (`\`) characters must be escaped:
use `\"` for `"` and `\\` for `\`.

The following escape sequences (beside `\"` and `\\`) are recognized:
`\n` for newline character (NL), `\t` for horizontal tabulation (HT, TAB)
and `\b` for backspace (BS).  Other char escape sequences (including octal
escape sequences) are invalid.


Includes
~~~~~~~~

The `include`