Re: git ls-files unreliable?

[Alex Riesen <raa.lkml@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 20:08, Gabor Gombas <gombasg@digikabel.hu> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to verify from a script that the working directory is clean. Some
> time ago Linus suggested to use "git diff --quiet --cached" followed by

In your script, you seem to have missed the "diff" part

> "git ls-files --exclude-standard -o -d -m -u". But:
>
> $ git status
> # On branch git_workdir_check
> # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
> #
> # Changes to be committed:
> #   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
> #
> #       modified:   ../../../test
> #
> # Changed but not updated:
> #   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
> #   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working
> #   directory)
> #
> #       modified:   ../../../test
> #

Here. Were is your call to "git diff --cached"?

> $ git ls-files --exclude-standard -o -d -m -u
> $ echo $?
> 0

This is correct.

> So there _were_ uncommitted changes, "git status" showed them, but "git
> ls-files" did not.

Because it is not supposed to. The command "git ls-files" just shows
the files not known to git. You have to parse the output. Not that it
is complicated in this particular case: you consider the workdir unclean
on any output.

> Restriction: any solutions must work with git versions as old as 1.5.4.

It probably will, but please check "git diff --cached" exit code.
It may be always 0, in which case you'll have to fallback to
output parsing here too.