Re: t4151 missing quotes

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 9, 2016, 20:45 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqmvnzt0yx.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAPig+cS4Bj4N8d1a29z8=f30owOec1pB=yF32ZUPmDH2Tu2kXA@mail.gmail.com>

Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> writes:

Show 16 quoted lines

> On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 2:56 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Something like this follows Documentation/SubmittingPatches [...]
>>
>> -- >8 --
>> From: Armin Kunaschik <megabreit@googlemail.com>
>> Subject: t4151: make sure argument to 'test -z' is given
>>
>> 88d50724 (am --skip: revert changes introduced by failed 3way merge,
>> 2015-06-06), unlike all the other patches in the series, forgot to
>> quote the output from "$(git ls-files -u)" when using it as the
>> argument to "test -z", leading to a syntax error.
>
> To make it clear that this was not a syntax error in the typical case,
> it might make sense to say:
>
>     ...potentially leading to a syntax error if some earlier tests failed.

Hmph, do we have a broken &&-chain?

If an earlier test fails and leaves an unmerged path, "ls-files -u" would give some output, so "test -z" would get one or more non-empty strings; if we feed multiple, this would fail. But we would not have even run "test -z" as long as we properly &&-chain these tests.

I think the real issue is when the earlier step succeeds and does not leave any unmerged path. In that case, we would run "test -z" without anything else on the command line, which would lead to an syntax error.

    Side Note: /usr/bin/test and test (built into bash and dash)
    seem not to care about the lack of string in "test -z <string>"
    and "test -n <string>".  It appears to me that they just take
    "-z" and "-n" without "<string>" as a special case of "test
    <string>" that is fed "-z" or "-n" as <string>.  Apparently, the
    platform Armin is working on doesn't.

Perhaps

    ... leading to a syntax error on some platforms whose "test"
    does not interpret "test -z" (no other arguments) as testing if
    a string "-z" is the null string (which GNU test and test that
    is built into bash and dash seem to do).

would be an improvement?