Re: [RFC] Add basic syntax check on shell scripts

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2012 at 12:43:30PM +0700, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 2:39 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> >> Or a project commit hook?
> >
> > Surely.  It is OK to have "cd t && make test-lint" in your
> > pre-commit hook.
> 
> No, what I meant is a shared pre-commit script that all git devs are
> encouraged (or forced) to install so bugs are found locally rather
> than after patches are sent to you. The hook content does not really
> matter.

I think that is orthogonal. You would want to implement the guts of such
a hook outside the hook itself, so that it could be run at arbitrary
times. So even if we want such a hook, the development should probably
look like:

  1. Implement checks in t/Makefile, triggered by "make test-lint" or
     similar.

  2. Run "make test-lint" in a hook.

I do not use such a hook myself, but I do run "test-lint" as part of my
"make test", and I "make test" each series I send (and if the series has
non-trivial refactoring, each individual patch of the series to catch
breakages that come and go during refactoring). But I decide when to run
those checks, not a hook.

Anyway, I do think a "shell portability lint" would be a great addition
to "test-lint", but I am slightly skeptical that it will be easy to
write a good one that does not have false positives. Still, there may be
some low-hanging fruit. I have not looked carefully at Torsten's patch
yet.

-Peff