From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2026 06:19:59 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] t1401: check symbolic-ref failure and --quiet silence on a non-symbolic ref
Message-ID: <apUdDyG98D5upbhj@pks.im>
In-Reply-To: <pull.2204.v3.git.1787763107646.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 26, 2026 at 04:51:47PM +0000, Nikolaus Schuetz via GitGitGadget wrote:
> From: Nikolaus Schuetz <nikolauspschuetz@gmail.com>
> 
> git-symbolic-ref(1) documents that reading a name that is not a
> symbolic ref fails, and that --quiet does so silently.  Tests such as
> t2020 and t5621 already rely on "symbolic-ref -q HEAD" failing on a
> detached HEAD, but none checks that the plain form reports the error
> or that --quiet stays silent.
> 
> Assert that a non-symbolic ref fails with the "is not a symbolic ref"
> message, and that --quiet fails with no output.  Use test_must_fail
> rather than pinning the exact exit codes, which are documented but not
> worth freezing in the test.

Documented sure, but the behaviour does not match the documentation:

  git symbolic-ref will exit with status 0 if the contents of the
  symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested
  name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs.

So in theory we should always exit with 1 in case the refname is not a
symbolic reference, no matter whether the user passes "--quiet" or not.

Anyway, we're not asserting the current broken behaviour in the new
tests anymore, so I think that this version is good enough. Thanks!

Patrick