threads / bug / 39217

[BUG] git commit --allow-empty-message -m '' fails

Subject: [BUG] git commit --allow-empty-message -m '' fails

## tl;dr

4 messages between May 1, 2015 and May 2, 2015.

replies: 3people: 2as markdown or json

Josh Hagins· May 1, 2015, 23:31 UTC · lore

When passed the `--allow-empty-message` flag with no `-m`, `git commit` will open the editor and allow you to exit with an empty message, as expected.

However, when passed `-m ''` in addition to `--allow-empty-message`, the commit fails. Example below:

    $ git commit -a --allow-empty-message -m ''
    error: switch `m' requires a value
    usage: git commit [<options>] [--] <pathspec>...
    ...

Shouldn't the `-m` switch know whether the `--allow-empty-message` flag has been passed?

Thanks, Josh

Jeff King· May 2, 2015, 01:06 UTC · re: Josh Hagins · lore

Re: [BUG] git commit --allow-empty-message -m '' fails

On Fri, May 01, 2015 at 07:31:08PM -0400, Josh Hagins wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> When passed the `--allow-empty-message` flag with no `-m`, `git
> commit` will open the editor and allow you to exit with an empty
> message, as expected.
> 
> However, when passed `-m ''` in addition to `--allow-empty-message`,
> the commit fails. Example below:
> 
>     $ git commit -a --allow-empty-message -m ''
>     error: switch `m' requires a value
>     usage: git commit [<options>] [--] <pathspec>...
>     ...
> 
> Shouldn't the `-m` switch know whether the `--allow-empty-message`
> flag has been passed?
It should. It works here for me:
  $ git commit --allow-empty --allow-empty-message -m ''
  [master 2957ea1]

The message you're seeing comes from the option-parser, which thinks there isn't any argument to `-m` at all. I can get the same result like:

  $ git commit --allow-empty --allow-empty-message -m
  error: switch `m' requires a value
  ...

Are you running the command inside another bit of shell script that might be eating the empty argument (e.g., eval-ing it inside of another set of single quotes or something like that)?

-Peff
Jeff King· May 2, 2015, 02:29 UTC · lore

Re: [BUG] git commit --allow-empty-message -m '' fails

On Sat, May 02, 2015 at 01:25:45AM +0000, Josh Hagins wrote:
Show 6 quoted lines
> I have git aliased to hub, which must do some preprocessing before handing
> the command off to git.
> 
> That's likely the culprit, but I'm using iTerm as my terminal emulator,
> which might be doing something tricky, but I doubt it. I'll open an issue
> on hub's GitHub repo and see what I can find out.
Ah, yeah, it's probably hub. Looks like it's fixed already there:
  https://github.com/github/hub/pull/727
-Peff
Josh Hagins· May 2, 2015, 02:44 UTC · re: Jeff King · lore

Re: [BUG] git commit --allow-empty-message -m '' fails

Turns out it was actually scm_breeze. It defines a git() bash function and takes care of expanding arguments itself:

  https://github.com/ndbroadbent/scm_breeze/blob/master/lib/git/aliases.sh#L26
I'll open an issue there.
On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 10:29 PM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> On Sat, May 02, 2015 at 01:25:45AM +0000, Josh Hagins wrote:
>
>> I have git aliased to hub, which must do some preprocessing before handing
>> the command off to git.
>>
>> That's likely the culprit, but I'm using iTerm as my terminal emulator,
>> which might be doing something tricky, but I doubt it. I'll open an issue
>> on hub's GitHub repo and see what I can find out.
>
> Ah, yeah, it's probably hub. Looks like it's fixed already there:
>
>   https://github.com/github/hub/pull/727
>
> -Peff
-- 
Josh Hagins
College of Engineering
Cornell University '14
(843) 847-6008

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