From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:05:23 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] t1401: check symbolic-ref exit codes and --quiet silence
Message-ID: <xmqqfr03oyik.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <20260824230527.24163-1-nikolauspschuetz@gmail.com>

Nikolaus Schuetz <nikolauspschuetz@gmail.com> writes:

> I would favor continuing to not test for the exact error code, and
> would rather not disturb anything scripts may already rely on.
>
> In either case the git-symbolic-ref.adoc NOTES are out of sync with the
> actual behavior:
>
>   'git symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 [...], with status 1 if the
>   requested name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs.
>
> To describe the actual behavior:
>
>   '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 and --quiet was given, or with status 128
>   if it is not a symbolic ref and --quiet was not given, or another
>   error occurs.
>
> If that sounds OK I can update the adoc and call it good.

This is the kind of "casting wrong behaviour into stone by either
documentation or tests" that I advised against in my earlier
message.