git config --git-all can return non-zero error code

According to the man page for git-config, the --git-all option is not supposed to return an error code:

--get-all
	Like get, but does not fail if the number of values for the key is
	not exactly one.

IMHO, zero is also "not exactly one", but I still get a 1 exit code if the key does not exist.

My .git/config says this:

[user "cq.branch"]
	mastr = upstream/master

git-config --get-all does this:

$ git config --get-all user.cq.branch.master $ echo $? 1 $ git config --get-all user.cq.branch.mastr upstream/master $ echo $? 0

I just want git to return nothing if the key doesn't exist. I don't want it to return an exit code. Is there a way to do this? I think either the code is broken or the documentation needs to be changed.

I'm running git version 1.7.3.4

Timur Tabi <timur@freescale.com> writes:

It should have stated "like get, but unlike get, it does not fail when there are multiple values for the key", but the documentation was written with that specific knowledge that "--get" has a logic to make it fail when there are ambiguities, and wanted to stress that difference. It forgot to mention their similarity explicitly and relied on "Like get" part to mean (1) shows the value(s) given to the key, and (2) it is an error if there is no such key defined.

The wording "... is not exactly one." incorrectly hinted as if having no value is not an error, but that was not what was intended. Clarify what similarity it wants to mention by elaborating the "Like get" part of the description.

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
---
 Documentation/git-config.txt | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)