Inconsistent handling of .profile/.bashrc by bash.exe/git-bash.exe

[NeilStrickland]

• I was not able to find an open or closed issue matching what I'm seeing

Setup

• Which version of Git for Windows are you using? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?
  Installer is Git-2.24.1.2-64-bit.exe

git version 2.24.1.windows.2
cpu: x86_64
built from commit: 992f0773022527b1b0cb1e0c13aec97dd5248053
sizeof-long: 4
sizeof-size_t: 8

• Which version of Windows are you running? Vista, 7, 8, 10? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

$ cmd.exe /c ver
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.535]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

• What options did you set as part of the installation? Or did you choose the
  defaults?

# One of the following:
> type "C:\Program Files\Git\etc\install-options.txt"

Editor Option: VIM
Custom Editor Path:
Path Option: Cmd
SSH Option: OpenSSH
Tortoise Option: false
CURL Option: OpenSSL
CRLF Option: CRLFAlways
Bash Terminal Option: MinTTY
Performance Tweaks FSCache: Enabled
Use Credential Manager: Enabled
Enable Symlinks: Disabled
Enable Builtin Interactive Add: Disabled

• Any other interesting things about your environment that might be related
  to the issue you're seeing?

** insert your response here **

Details

• Which terminal/shell are you running Git from? e.g Bash/CMD/PowerShell/other

Bash. (This issue is completely about bash and not git itself)

• What commands did you run to trigger this issue? If you can provide a
  Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example
  this will help us understand the issue.

I created files .profile and .bashrc in C:\Users\Neil Strickland, containing lines 
`export $PROFILE_READ=1` and `export $BASHRC_READ=1` respectively.
I then executed `C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe` (either by typing that 
path in a cmd.exe window, or by clicking Terminal in VS Code) and at the
resulting bash prompt I entered `echo $PROFILE_READ` and `echo $BASHRC_READ`.

I then executed `C:\Program Files\Git\git-bash.exe` (either by typing this path 
in a cmd.exe window, or by starting Git Bash from the Start Menu) and again 
entered `echo $PROFILE_READ` and `echo $BASHRC_READ` at the bash prompt.

• What did you expect t o occur after running these commands?

I expected that C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe and C:\Program Files\Git\git-bash.exe would give the same result.

• What actually happened instead?

C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe apparently reads .bashrc but not .profile;
C:\Program Files\Git\git-bash.exe apparently reads .profile but not .bashrc.

(Specifically, executing echo $PROFILE_READ gives an empty response with bash.exe and gives 1 with git-bash.exe; for echo $BASHRC_READ it is the other way around.)

• If the problem was occurring with a specific repository, can you provide the
  URL to that repository to help us with testing?

Not applicable

[rimrul]

That's by design. .bashrc is read by interactive subshells, .bash_profile is read by login shells

Try modifying your .bashrc to contain echo ".bashrc" and your .bash_profile to contain echo ".bash_profile", change to C:\Program Files\Git\bin\ in CMD and try calling ./bash.exe, ./bash.exe -l and ./bash.exe -c exit a few times each. Consistent predictable behaviour.

Edit: bash falls back to .profile if it can't find .bash_profile.

[NeilStrickland]

OK. But that means you are treating Git Bash started from the Start Menu as a login shell, which does not really seem to be correct. Moreover, you are treating it differently from Git Bash started in the default way in VS Code, which can create a lot of confusion. I can now deal with it myself, but I am trying to write and debug instructions for other users, and this will make their life harder.

[rimrul]

Git bash started from anywhere should be a login shell. How does VS code launch git bash as an interactive non-login shell?

[rimrul]

Looking at the vscode source, they don't seem to intentionally launch git bash at any point. There's some code to determine if they where launched from git bash, but I don't see any launching. Is this some sort of plugin?

[NeilStrickland]

I made a fresh install of VS Code with no extensions etc. If I click Terminal on the top toolbar, then select New Terminal from the dropdown menu, then it opens a Powershell terminal within the VS Code window. Just above the terminal there is a drop-down list offering alternatives to Powershell. One of them is C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe.

[NeilStrickland]

This is from lines 117-121 here:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/8db441df8713e775e0716b89d2fe3a58f5919589/src/vs/workbench/contrib/terminal/node/terminal.ts

[NeilStrickland]

It's possible to make bash under VS Code read .bash_profile by adding "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": [ "-l" ] in settings.json. Is it your position that that should be the default?

[dscho]

It's possible to make bash under VS Code read .bash_profile by adding "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": [ "-l" ] in settings.json. Is it your position that that should be the default?

If the default for the integrated shell on Windows is to call Bash (Git for Windows', or any other), then yes.