Re: Feature request: different exit codes for git stash depending on whether stash was created or not

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Sep 27, 2019, 23:07 UTC
Message-ID: <20190927230747.yjdeaen34nnpcchy@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <CADZUK1cjvifbFYk9w6+vE95jgEBuwjoOi_1QfZHoPFBXuXHCCg@mail.gmail.com>

On 2019-09-27 at 12:55:27, Ian Kemp wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Hi,
> 
> Currently, git stash's exit code is 0 regardless of whether it
> performed a stash operation or not. Third parties invoking git stash
> are therefore unable to determine whether a stash was actually made or
> not.
> 
> It would be helpful if there were different exit codes for the case
> when a stash was created (working directory dirty) vs when a stash was
> not (working dir clean). git stash create suffers from the same issue.
> 
> There are various workarounds for this e.g.
> https://stackoverflow.com/a/34116244/70345 but they aren't
> particularly pretty or reliable, hence this request.

Folks have already given you a link to previous discussion, but if you want to know if there's anything to stash couldn't you use something like this:

  #!/bin/sh

  if [ -z "$(git status --porcelain)" ]
  then
    CLEAN=1
  fi

  [ -n "$CLEAN" ] || git stash

  # your operation here

  [ -n "$CLEAN" ] || git stash pop

An empty output from git status --porcelain is the definitive way to know if the working tree is clean, which is what you care about in this case. If you want to ignore untracked files, a suitable grep invocation can do that for you as well.

-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204