Re: .git/hooks/commit-msg makes git-gui hang

[Jim Meyering]

Bernhard Voelker wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
> I wanted to do a commit in git-gui using a message with
> 74 characters in a line. The commit-msg hook catched that,
> and opened $EDITOR.
>
> However, as I committed from git-gui, there was no
> terminal, and git-gui hang.
>
> berny@blackice:~/git/coreutils> ps -f
> UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
> berny     7183  7181  0 07:59 pts/1    00:00:00 bash
> berny     7909  7183  0 08:07 pts/1    00:00:02 wish /usr/bin/gitk --
> berny     7961  7909  0 08:08 pts/1    00:00:00 git gui
> berny     7962  7961  0 08:08 pts/1    00:00:02 wish /usr/lib/git/git-gui --
> berny 7970 7962 0 08:08 pts/1 00:00:00 aspell --mode=none
> --encoding=utf-8 pipe
> berny    20015  7909  0 09:02 pts/1    00:00:00 git gui
> berny    20016 20015  0 09:02 pts/1    00:00:01 wish /usr/lib/git/git-gui --
> berny 20025 20016 0 09:03 pts/1 00:00:00 aspell --mode=none
> --encoding=utf-8 pipe
> berny 20603 20016 0 09:11 pts/1 00:00:00 perl -w .git/hooks/commit-msg
> .git/GITGUI_EDITMSG
> berny    20605 20603  0 09:11 pts/1    00:00:00 vi .git/GITGUI_EDITMSG
> berny    21037  7183  0 09:17 pts/1    00:00:00 ps -f
>
> Is there an easy solution to avoid using vi when a tty is not
> available? Maybe the commit-msg should start a terminal, or just
> refuse the commit with a diagnostic.

Hi Berny,

Thanks for the report.

I'm not sure it's worth trying to do that.
There are many terminal-only editors.

Besides, using a GUI tool that may invoke another program
that invokes a terminal-requiring EDITOR seems like the real problem.

When using a GUI like git-gui, it seems sensible
to set EDITOR to an editor that does not require a tty.

i.e., invoke it through a function like this:

git-gui() { export EDITOR=vim; git gui "$@"; }