Re: git rebase --continue error message is misleading

From: Björn Lindqvist <bjourne@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 10, 2025, 10:19 UTC
Message-ID: <CALG+76erpDGFinXsockB8=+GPEoEtd+xw=xVN1HCzv7=aFymoA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <534e8534-a9bd-428b-87f9-a512c9378b19@gmail.com>

Den fre 13 dec. 2024 kl 15:38 skrev Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>:

Show 12 quoted lines

> On 09/12/2024 13:02, Björn Lindqvist wrote:
> > $ LANG=C git rebase --continue
> > hint: Waiting for your editor to close the file... error: cannot run
> > vi: No such file or directory
> > error: unable to start editor 'vi'
> > Please supply the message using either -m or -F option.
>
> This line comes from "git commit" whenever launch_editor() fails. I
> wonder if we'd be better to recommend that the user sets up a working
> editor instead. The message is certainly unhelpful when we run "git
> commit" from "git cherry-pick/merge/rebase/revert" where we want to seed
> the message that the user edits.

Here, I don't think assuming the user has vi installed is correct.

> I don't think that is a good idea when "git commit" is being run from
> "git rebase". In that case we want to preserve the original message and
> authorship and using '-F' or '-m' would not do that.

The error should tell you about that, I think. Right now I get:

LANG=C git commit hint: Waiting for your editor to close the file... error: cannot run vi: No such file or directory error: unable to start editor 'vi' Please supply the message using either -m or -F option.

The only solution I've found is git commit -m "blah".

-- 
mvh/best regards Björn Lindqvist