Re: git config error message

From: Angelo Borsotti <angelo.borsotti@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 27, 2012, 14:50 UTC
Message-ID: <CAB9Jk9A-uXXXKCBKvxyDN6QQx1b0zqemg7UbeRMcWeY7gi4MRQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <m2d3049hvs.fsf@igel.home>

Hi Andreas,

>
> Is grep not finding a match an error?  Is cmp finding a difference an
> error?  It all depends on the context.
>

Manpage of grep, exit staus:

   "Normally, the exit status is 0 if selected lines are found and 1
otherwise. But the exit status is 2 if an error occurred, ..."

cmp uses the same convention (albeit not reported in its manpage).

I am not stating that all linux commands and utilities follow exactly the same convention, but these two are at least consistent with themselves always returning an exit status that has a well defined meaning. git-config returns consistently the exit status, it only issues in certain cases messages and in others not. A consistent solution could be for it to return 0 upon success, 1 when the section or key is absent, and 2 when the config file does not exist or is corrupt issuing also an error message.

-Angelo

Show 12 quoted lines

>> How can otherwise the user tell a corrupted configuration file from a
>> missing key?
>
> You cannot, as long as your configuration file is well-formed, because a
> missing key is an expected condition in many cases.
>
> Andreas.
>
> --
> Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
> GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
> "And now for something completely different."