fatal: bad boolean config value for 'core.autocrlf'

Question

i am new to git and i am doing a test repository to see how it goes.

First when i did git add i had a warning telling me that my file will be turned to clrf or something like that.

So i tried to change it just to see what it does.

I did something like git config core.autocrlf = false What i did not expected is that the "=" would be passed as a value to this boolean. It make's very little sens to me.

So i don't need = to assign a value to a variable fine. I did it again this time git config core.autocrlf false

Then i did git add and get the following message :fatal: bad boolean config value "=" for 'core.autoclrf

Then i did the git config --get-all core.autocrlf command to understand. And i'v seen that the value is not override when i set a new value, insted it's add a line with an other value.

I'v checked in my "/Git/etc/gitconfig" file to see what value was set to the autocrlf variable to see if i could change it directly from here but the value was "true".

So i don't understand where the values are stored.

Also i tried

    git config --unset-all core.autocrlf 
    git config --replace-all core.autocrlf
    git config --system --unset core.autocrlf

None of that worked. For the last one it was funny, i had a permission denied then did chmod u+x gitconfig but get a changing permission of gitconfig: permission denied.

So if you know how am i suppose to change the value of this boolean "core.autocrlf" so i can add my repository let me know.##

Answer 1

Since you see a "bad boolean value", that means you are using Git 2.31+
Only that recent version has improved the error message, as I reported here.

It also means you have the --show-scope option (introduced with Git 2.26, Q1 2020)

git config --get-all --show-origin --show-scope core.autocrlf
system  file:D:/newenv/prgs/gits/current/etc/gitconfig  true
global  file:C:/Users/vonc/.gitconfig  false
^^^^^^
(scope)
(shows you which git config --local/global/system to use)

I would not recommend using --edit and fiddling directly with a .gitconfig content. Using unset, then setting it again is safer.

Answer 2

I had the same issue, if you're on windows simple set it to true:

$ git config --global core.autocrlf true

If you're on macOS set it to false:

$ git config --global core.autocrlf false

Answer 3

Like OP I also managed to accidentally add a value into the core.autocrlf boolean - why this is even possible rather than just allowing set and unset for boolean config values, I'm not sure.

To fix the fatal error - which prevents git from being able to do anything at all, including reverting to an earlier snapshot - I did:

git config --edit

...and then simply removed the line containing autocrlf from my repo's .git/config file.

Answer 4

Type this on your terminal

git config --global -e

it will open .gitconfig If you using windows, go to the folder

C:\Users\xxx_

You will find the .gitconfig file.