From: Baptiste Chocot <baptiste.chocot@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2021 19:20:50 GMT
Subject: Re: Troubles redirecting git output
Message-ID: <356c442a-5b21-39ed-ca58-dc9c67727089@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <87f4a68e-3a74-eddf-c4ad-e6674d9f7994@xiplink.com>

Marc,

Thanks for your help... :facepalm: I look like a noob but at least I've 
learnt something useful.

Have a good day!

On 7/9/21 9:40 AM, Marc Branchaud wrote:
> On 2021-07-09 7:59 a.m., Baptiste Chocot wrote:
>> Hello guys, hope you're doing great.
>>
>> I'm reaching out today because I cannot find a fix for my issue. I'm 
>> using git 2.25.1 from the debian repo. I'm having difficulties to 
>> redirect git stderr, here is an example:
>>
>> ---
>> $ git init
>> Initialized empty lol/.git/
>> $ git branch >&2 2>/dev/null
>
> Try swapping the two redirections:
>     git branch 2>/dev/null >&2
>
> I believe that standard shell behaviour is to apply a redirection 
> immediately when it appears while parsing the command.  I believe that 
> although the man pages say "redirect" internally the code just 
> *replaces* the old file descriptor, e.g. basically something 
> equivalent to
>     stdout = 2
>
> So when you say
>
>     git branch >&2 2>/dev/null
>
> The shell sees
>
> ">&2" -- The shell redirects stdout to file descriptor 2.
>
> "2>/dev/null" -- The shell opens /dev/null (as descriptor 3) and 
> *replaces* descriptor 2 with the new descriptor.  But at this point, 
> stdout is still being sent to the original descriptor 2.
>
> When I redirect, I'm in the habit of setting stdout first, then set 
> stderr to stdout. The numerical ordering helps me avoid this mistake:
>     git branch >/dev/null 2>&1
>
>         M.
>
>
>> fatal: your current branch 'master' does not have any commits yet
>> ---
>>
>> Is this an expected behavior? I find it weird not to be able to 
>> silent git. Are you aware of a workaround? I've been browsing a bit 
>> but did not find an answer yet.
>>
>> Thanks for your time!
>>
>> Baptiste
>>