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avargitster
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cat-file doc: document that -e will return some output
The -e option added in 7950571 ("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 <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>
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Documentation/git-cat-file.txt

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@@ -42,8 +42,9 @@ OPTIONS
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<object>.
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-e::
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Suppress all output; instead exit with zero status if <object>
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exists and is a valid object.
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Exit with zero status if <object> exists and is a valid
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object. If <object> is of an invalid format exit with non-zero and
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emits an error on stderr.
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-p::
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Pretty-print the contents of <object> based on its type.
@@ -168,7 +169,7 @@ If `-t` is specified, one of the <type>.
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If `-s` is specified, the size of the <object> in bytes.
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If `-e` is specified, no output.
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If `-e` is specified, no output, unless the <object> is malformed.
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If `-p` is specified, the contents of <object> are pretty-printed.
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