Re: [PATCH/RFC] git-grep: correct exit code with --quiet and -L

Anthony Sottile <asottile@umich.edu> writes:

I agree with the above statement of yours that --quiet should not affect what the exit status is.

But I am not sure what the exit code from these commands _should_ be:

    $ git grep -L qfwfq \*.h    ;# no file matches
    $ git grep -L \# \*.h       ;# some but not all files match
    $ git grep -L . \*.h        ;# all files match

with or without --quiet. I seem to get 0, 0, 1, which I am not sure is correct. I do recall writing "git grep" _without_ thinking what the exit code should be when we added --files-without-match, so the exit status the current code gives out may be just a random garbage.

Asking GNU grep (because --files-without-match is not a POSIX thing):

    $ grep -L qfwfq *.h          ;# no file matches
    $ grep -L \# *.h             ;# some but not all files match
    $ grep -L . *.h              ;# all files match

I seem to get 1, 0, 0. So the exit status should reflect if there was _any_ hit from any file that were inspected.

Does the change in this hunk have any effect?

Just before this hunk there is this code:

		/* "grep -v -e foo -e bla" should list lines
		 * that do not have either, so inversion should
		 * be done outside.
		 */
		if (opt->invert)
			hit = !hit;
		if (opt->unmatch_name_only) {
			if (hit)
				return 0;
			goto next_line;

If (opt->unmatch_name_only && hit) then the function would have already returned and the control wouldn't have reached here.

Which would mean that when the control reaches the line this hunk touches, either one of these must be false, and because we are inside "if (hit)", opt->unmatch_name_only must be false.

This hunk makes sense to me (provided if the semantics we want out of --files-without-match is sensible, which is dubious), even though I would have limited the change to just a single line, i.e.

	if (opt->status_only)
-		return 0;
+		return opt->unmatch_name_only;
	if (opt->unmatch_name_only) {
		/* We did not see any hit, ... */

But I suspect we want to fix the exit code not to be affected by the "--files-without-match" option in the first place, so all the code changes we see in this patch might be moot X-<.