Remove requirement for $GIT_SUBREPO_ROOT from _git-subrepo zsh completions

[rbellamy]

When the _git-subrepo completion script is dropped directly into /usr/share/zsh/site-functions the completions JustDon'tWork(tm).

Furthermore, the check doesn't actually DO anything except bark and barf if the variable hasn't been set - the completions work just fine without it.

[perlpunk]

@rbellamy regarding your first point:
it works for me.
What I did:

• comment out the line with enable-completion.sh in the .rc file to make sure the completion isn't loaded from this place
• sudo cp ~/.../git-subrepo/share/zsh-completion/_git-subrepo /usr/share/zsh/vendor-completions/
• open a completely new shell

and completion worked. If I leave out the copy, it doesn't work.

Maybe you should check if the path for the completion is correct on your side, and make sure you open a new shell after adding the script.

About the issue topic:
It's true that the completion script works without that variable. I think this is just there to make sure that you sourced the .rc script and have a running git-subrepo command.

Why would you want to remove it?

[rbellamy]

@perlpunk the assumption made by the completion script is that it has been installed via a git clone, and thus it's important to know where the $GIT_SUBREPO_ROOT is located.

If you copy the completion script, as-is, directly into /usr/zsh/site-functions then the completions will fail, because that variable will not have been set. The documentation says:

In the Z shell (zsh), you can manually enable git-subrepo completion by adding the following line to your ~/.zshrc, before the compinit function is called:

    fpath=('/path/to/git-subrepo/share/zsh-completion' $fpath)

My $fpath is set correctly to load functions in the following order:

1. ~/.config/zsh/functions
2. /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions
3. /usr/share/zsh/site-functions

Every other completion script in my system, including git, git-flow, curl, journalctl, systemctl, etc, have no requirement to know where their parent executable is installed - why should git-subrepo?

I recognize that the .gitsubrepo file expects to be able to include the git-subrepo commit hash - but again, what if the command has been installed via APT, YUM, or an Arch PKGBUILD? In those cases, there is no git-subrepo clone located on the installed system.

Or to make my point from another angle, to my mind testing whether a command has been installed correctly from within a completion script is asking it to do more than it should - the presumption is that the command is available on the users path, or completion isn't necessary in the first place.

Which brings me to my final argument - why add yet another path variable to the user's environment? $PATH already does this job - if it's really that important to identify whether the command has been installed "properly", then inspect the users path to see if you can find the command.

[perlpunk]

@rbellamy ok, then that's more a general question about $GIT_SUBREPO_ROOT - currently the docs say it's required to source the .rc file.
If that is actually not required to run it, then yeah, it should be removed

[cdlm]

👍

[perlpunk]

this was fixed in #476