Question

I use Git on my 2 Macs, which each have a different executable path (one is homebrew, one is make/install’d). I also use Git via Tramp mode.

So basically I want this, in pseudo code:

if home mac:
    (setq magit-git-executable "~/Projects/homebrew/bin/git")
else if work mac:
    (setq magit-git-executable "/usr/local/git/bin/git")
else [if in tramp mode]:
    (setq magit-git-executable "git") ;; Linux can work this out so don't need a full path

This would all work fine as the last clause if Emacs would respect my setenv("PATH") configuration, but it doesn’t seem to.

Is there a good way to solve this in Elisp so my emacs.d can remain portable between machines? Failing that, is it possible to set a variable just when I’m editing a file via tramp?

Answer 1

It’s going to be tricky if you insist on magit-git-executable taking one value if you’re in a Tramp buffer and another value if not. It would be easier to leave magit-git-executable at its default value of "git", and adjust your exec-path depending on which machine you’re on.

How do you distinguish your machines? By name? If so, then maybe something like this:

(require 'cl)
(loop for (name . dir) in '(("home.local" . "~/Projects/homebrew/bin")
                            ("work.local" . "/usr/local/git/bin"))
      if (string= (system-name) name)
      do (push dir exec-path))