From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
To: Hardik Kumar <hardikxk@gmail.com>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] t/t1467-refs-rename: Use test_must_fail in place of NOT operator
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2026 20:43:20 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqqld7iebhj.fsf@gitster.g> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261028-refs-rename-test-fail-v1-1-b7458ca62149@gmail.com> (Hardik Kumar's message of "Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:18:43 +0530")
Hardik Kumar <hardikxk@gmail.com> writes:
> All tests in `t/t1467-refs-rename.sh` use test_must_fail for verifying
> when a test or command is expected to fail. `test_must_fail` is used for
> all Git commands.
"all Git commands" that are expected to fail, right?
For two "git" commands that appear immediately before the line you
touched in the patch, test_must_fail is not used ;-)
> The use of the NOT operator is replaced with `test_must_fail` to ensure
> consistency in the unit tests without any functional changes to the
> tests themselves.
A more common way for our proposed commit log message phrase the
above is
Replace the "not" (!) operator with `test_must_fail` to ...
More importantly, the use of test_must_fail is *NOT* about
consistency. The most important reason why it is the better way to
write than "! git refs rename ..." is that test_must_fail notices
and fails loudly if the command line getting tested does not fail in
a graceful way. If somebody tries to update the "git refs" command,
introduces a bug and makes it segfault when
git refs rename refs/heads/symref refs/heads/renamed
is run, the command line prefixed with '!' will happily say "ah, the
command crashed and did not succeed, and I am happy", but that is
not the kind of failing that we want to be happy with. If you
prefix the command line with test_must_fail, however, test_must_fail
would still fail when the "git refs rename" died with segfault or
otherwise killed by a signal.
Thanks.
> Signed-off-by: Hardik Kumar <hardikxk@gmail.com>
> ---
> t/t1467-refs-rename.sh | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/t/t1467-refs-rename.sh b/t/t1467-refs-rename.sh
> index 2b28be75c8..b7d290d05b 100755
> --- a/t/t1467-refs-rename.sh
> +++ b/t/t1467-refs-rename.sh
> @@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ test_expect_success 'rename with symbolic ref fails' '
> A=$(git rev-parse A) &&
> git refs create refs/heads/target $A &&
> git symbolic-ref refs/heads/symref refs/heads/target &&
> - ! git refs rename refs/heads/symref refs/heads/renamed 2>err &&
> + test_must_fail git refs rename refs/heads/symref refs/heads/renamed 2>err &&
> test_grep "is a symbolic ref, .* not supported" err
> )
> '
>
> ---
> base-commit: 37b3475fb530c14109211faca33716a173db61ed
> change-id: 20261028-refs-rename-test-fail-ec7a8fa74e54
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-10-28 3:43 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-10-27 18:48 [PATCH] t/t1467-refs-rename: Use test_must_fail in place of NOT operator Hardik Kumar
2026-10-28 3:43 ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2026-10-28 9:59 ` Hardik Kumar
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=xmqqld7iebhj.fsf@gitster.g \
--to=gitster@pobox.com \
--cc=git@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=hardikxk@gmail.com \
--cc=ps@pks.im \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox