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authorÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>2018-01-10 12:55:53 +0000
committerJunio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>2018-01-10 15:08:14 -0800
commit9bd2ce543298c9b2f1a6d1bb8ffef18295ccfec7 (patch)
treea963d90de9ef70e65930dfc3540b6bbaaa36eea5 /Documentation
parent3013dff8662eae06457fe6e5348dfe2270810ab2 (diff)
downloadgit-9bd2ce543298c9b2f1a6d1bb8ffef18295ccfec7.tar.gz
cat-file doc: document that -e will return some outputab/doc-cat-file-e-still-shows-errors
The -e option added in 7950571ad7 ("A few more options for git-cat-file", 2005-12-03) has always errored out with message on stderr saying that the provided object is malformed, like this: $ git cat-file -e malformed; echo $? fatal: Not a valid object name malformed 128 A reader of this documentation may be misled into thinking that if ! git cat-file -e "$object" [...] as opposed to: if ! git cat-file -e "$object" 2>/dev/null [...] is sufficient to implement a truly silent test that checks whether some arbitrary $object string was both valid, and pointed to an object that exists. Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/git-cat-file.txt7
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt b/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
index fb09cd69d6..f90f09b03f 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
@@ -42,8 +42,9 @@ OPTIONS
<object>.
-e::
- Suppress all output; instead exit with zero status if <object>
- exists and is a valid object.
+ Exit with zero status if <object> exists and is a valid
+ object. If <object> is of an invalid format exit with non-zero and
+ emits an error on stderr.
-p::
Pretty-print the contents of <object> based on its type.
@@ -168,7 +169,7 @@ If `-t` is specified, one of the <type>.
If `-s` is specified, the size of the <object> in bytes.
-If `-e` is specified, no output.
+If `-e` is specified, no output, unless the <object> is malformed.
If `-p` is specified, the contents of <object> are pretty-printed.