CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bash
Ben Aston
Ben Aston

Reputation: 55739

Suppressing an error in .bash_profile

I am using the following to display the current branch name in my bash prompt (via .bash_profile):

GetBranch()
{
  cat ./.git/HEAD | sed 's+^ref: refs/heads/++'
}

But when I am in a directory that does not correspond to a git repository, I get an error (because ./.git/HEAD does not exist).

How can I suppress this error?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 123

Answers (4)

Matthieu Moy
Matthieu Moy

Reputation: 16527

Not directly answering the question, but there are a lot of existing scripts to get a git-aware prompt. You may want to use them instead of writing your own. See for example https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/completion/git-prompt.sh or search "git bash prompt" in you favorite search engine.

Upvotes: 1

chepner
chepner

Reputation: 531325

Use git itself to return the currently checked-out branch, rather than digging into the repository.

GetBranch () {
    git symbolic-ref --short HEAD 2> /dev/null
}

This will work from any directory in a repository, not just the root.

Upvotes: 1

Kenster
Kenster

Reputation: 25399

Test whether the repository is present first:

GetBranch()
{
    if [ -f .git/HEAD ]
    then
        sed 's+^ref: refs/heads/++' < .git/HEAD
    else
        echo "Not a repository" >&2
    fi
}

Upvotes: 2

Mr. Llama
Mr. Llama

Reputation: 20899

Redirect STDERR to /dev/null:

GetBranch()
{
    cat ./.git/HEAD 2>/dev/null | sed 's+^ref: refs/heads/++'
}

Here's a quick guide on file descriptors that will help explain how 2>/dev/null works.

Alternately, instead of suppressing an error, you could make the command conditional on ./.git/HEAD existing:

GetBranch()
{
    if [[ -e "./.git/HEAD" ]]; then
        cat ./.git/HEAD 2>/dev/null | sed 's+^ref: refs/heads/++'
    fi
}

Upvotes: 2

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