RE: Git question rewarding git merge and its exit codes

From: rsbecker@nexbridge.com <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>
Date: Jun 26, 2023, 15:25 UTC
Message-ID: <004c01d9a842$77e75ee0$67b61ca0$@nexbridge.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAPDGPD5UK8+Z0ksX-tv2Rs8ESZ+LCY-Tic-dZSGV0QNStFN=Pg@mail.gmail.com>

On Monday, June 26, 2023 8:15 AM, Iván Expósito wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

>Recently, we have been working on some automations for Git, especially auto-
>merging some branches. Just noticed that when using: git merge --commit --no-ff -m
>"test message", and no changes are needed, git returns  "Already up-to-date" with
>exit code 0. Is this correct? Git hasn't done anything, so not sure how correct is to
>return 0 for success when nothing has been done. We have here a problem because
>the only way we can detect if a commit has been made or not is to check the return
>text, which is not the best idea for future-proof, or changes in the return text.
>
>Is this exit code as defined, or maybe is something we would need to look into for
>future improvements? Is there any other alternatives to detect what has happened,
>not comparing the standard output text?

If you want to script this, use --no-commit instead of --commit. After the merge runs, use git status --porcelain to determine whether merge performed any actions involving staging to unstaged (conflicts) files. This removes the need to use the completion code.

--Randall

-- Brief whoami: NonStop&UNIX developer since approximately UNIX(421664400) NonStop(211288444200000000) -- In real life, I talk too much.