Treat etc/ special: automatically "install" the dotfiles in it

3 files changed, 14 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/man/5/caretaker.conf.pod b/man/5/caretaker.conf.pod
index 40b58fc..0e7b285 100644
--- a/man/5/caretaker.conf.pod
+++ b/man/5/caretaker.conf.pod
@@ -48,6 +48,10 @@ path for the local package tree
 
 Options to invoke L<checklinks>(1) with
 
+=item B<MAGIC_ETC>=I<boolean>   (--magic-etc)   [1]
+
+Automatically run checklinks on files (or, if present, dotfiles) in F<etc/>
+
 =item B<COLOURS>=I<boolean>   (--colours)   [1]
 
 Colorize the output (cyan for info messages, red for errors/warnings)
diff --git a/man/7/caretaker-setup.pod b/man/7/caretaker-setup.pod
index 4e64b4b..75554cd 100644
--- a/man/7/caretaker-setup.pod
+++ b/man/7/caretaker-setup.pod
@@ -31,7 +31,6 @@ this in the package root itself, since it's recommended to have bare git repos t
   Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/vim/.git/
   client /tmp/vim > mkdir etc
   client /tmp/vim > cp $your_fancy_vimrc etc/vimrc
-  client /tmp/vim > echo 'soft .vimrc $etc/vimrc' > links
   client /tmp/vim > git add .
   client /tmp/vim > git commit -m 'initial commit. Now with extra cake'
   [master (root-commit) 4359548] initial commit. Now with extra cake
diff --git a/man/7/caretaker.pod b/man/7/caretaker.pod
index 488a870..95b03ab 100644
--- a/man/7/caretaker.pod
+++ b/man/7/caretaker.pod
@@ -105,7 +105,13 @@ a manual will be generated out of it (see L</"COLLECTED PACKAGE FILES">)
 
 =item etc/
 
-Configuration files, not treated specially though
+Configuration files.  Unless your package contains a links file, all files in
+this directory (or, if it contains dotfiles, only the dotfiles) will
+automatically symlinked as dotfiles from your home using checklinks(1).
+So, for example F<etc/vimrc> will be installed as F<~/.vimrc>.
+
+If you do not want this behaviour, create an empty links file.
+To disable it for all packages, set MAGIC_ETC=0.
 
 =item hooks/
 
@@ -117,11 +123,11 @@ Manual files, separated by section (like man/7/caretaker.pod).
 Files with valid POD will be processed with pod2man, all other files which do
 not have a .pod suffix are assumed to be *roff source and directly put into
 the manual directory (with a symlink).
-See also L</"COLLECTED PACKAGE FILES">.
+See also L</"COLLECTED PACKAGE FILES">
 
 =item provides/
 
-Files for inclusion into other packages. See L</"PROVIDES">
+Files for inclusion into other packages.  See L</"PROVIDES">
 
 =item description
 
@@ -129,7 +135,7 @@ Package description for B<ct info>
 
 =item links
 
-Sym- and hardlink descriptions. See checklinks(1)
+Manual sym- and hardlink definitions.  See checklinks(1)
 
 =item Makefile