Merge branch 'kw/fsmonitor-watchman-racefix'

[thirdparty/git.git] / Documentation / git.txt

diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
index 0093c647bf64bc5a42d32b948e2d342c0ce61a49..b0672bd8065fe0cb61ca9e4563b8932a501fb3d9 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git.txt
@@ -110,9 +110,23 @@ foo.bar= ...`) sets `foo.bar` to the empty string which `git config
        Do not pipe Git output into a pager.
 
 --git-dir=<path>::
-       Set the path to the repository. This can also be controlled by
-       setting the `GIT_DIR` environment variable. It can be an absolute
-       path or relative path to current working directory.
+       Set the path to the repository (".git" directory). This can also be
+       controlled by setting the `GIT_DIR` environment variable. It can be
+       an absolute path or relative path to current working directory.
++
+Specifying the location of the ".git" directory using this
+option (or `GIT_DIR` environment variable) turns off the
+repository discovery that tries to find a directory with
+".git" subdirectory (which is how the repository and the
+top-level of the working tree are discovered), and tells Git
+that you are at the top level of the working tree.  If you
+are not at the top-level directory of the working tree, you
+should tell Git where the top-level of the working tree is,
+with the `--work-tree=<path>` option (or `GIT_WORK_TREE`
+environment variable)
++
+If you just want to run git as if it was started in `<path>` then use
+`git -C <path>`.
 
 --work-tree=<path>::
        Set the path to the working tree. It can be an absolute path