Re: [RFE] git rebase doesn't say it failed

From: Christian Holtje <docwhat@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 10, 2008, 14:33 UTC
Message-ID: <5C9883C7-04F4-4786-980A-25958A4102F1@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LSU.1.00.0803101207120.3975@racer.site>

On Mar 10, 2008, at 7:10 AM, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 26 quoted lines

> On Sun, 9 Mar 2008, Christian Holtje wrote:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> What happened:
>> I tried to do a rebase and got a message about files "needs update".
>> However, it didn't say it did a rebase nor did it say that it failed.
>
> It told you that a file is dirty.  Git kinda expects you to know  
> that it
> will not start a rebase on a dirty working directory.
>
> So there _was_ an (implicit) message saying that it failed.
>
>> Git was unable to rebase due to the files above.  Please commit  
>> them or move
>> them out of the way.
>> Hint: See "git reset --help" for a suggestion about saving work in  
>> progress.
>
> The same comment I gave last week applies here: people complained  
> that Git
> was too chatty.  I tend to agree, since the important information  
> was lost
> in the huge amount of text.  Now you say we should make it chatty  
> again?

I can see the problem with commands that execute correctly being too chatty, but here the command requested was not performed. In the name of terseness, how about simply saying "rebase was not performed."

As a general rule, though, when I generate an error message I try to explain what happened and how the user should fix it, which is why I included the more verbose version above.

Ciao!