Re: [PATCH] git stash: one bug and one feature request

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 5, 2008, 09:06 UTC
Message-ID: <7v7iiod4kw.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <e5bfff550801050025g6758bfb6p751e69e93d4299be@mail.gmail.com>

"Marco Costalba" <mcostalba@gmail.com> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> I understand your point. The problem is that in git there isn't an
> unique way to test success/fail for any command, as example, regarding
> checking the exit status:
>
> $ git status; echo $?
> # On branch master
> nothing to commit (working directory clean)
> 1

That is a bad example, with a slight historical background.

When you say "git status $args", you are asking the command this question.

	I am contemplating to issue "git commit $args", but will
	there actually be changes if I issued that command?

When there will be no changes staged with the given $args (in your case that happens to be empty), there won't be anything to be committed if you issued "git commit $args" at that point. The command answers "Eh, by issuing 'git commit' you will get an 'Nothing to commit', which is an error" --- and that is reported with its exit status.