Re: [PATCH] Allow git-diff exit with codes similar to diff(1)

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Mar 14, 2007, 01:38 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0703140237270.22628@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0703131831390.9690@woody.linux-foundation.org>

Hi,

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> On Wed, 14 Mar 2007, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> > 
> > So, big master to hom everybody bows, how to return the correct value 
> > when executing a pager? Because this _has_ to be done if we go that 
> > way.
> 
> Why? If you execute the pager, nobody cares about the error value 
> anyway.
> 
> I don't see why you would mix in a pager here. If you do
> 
> 	diff -u file1 file2 | less -S
> 
> the return value of the pipe will not only generally be totally 
> uninteresting and never used, but it will be the return value of "less" 
> anyway. Which is what we'd get quite naturally.

The thing is, most people do not realize that

	git diff file1 file2

_will_ execute a pager. As foreground process. And the return value is that of the pager.

Ciao, Dscho