How to create a Git GUI and parse git's output?

Question

I want to create a little Git GUI and my idea is to make a program that calls the normal git software (using exec or something similar), but my problem is that I don't know what to do with the stdout (output) of git. It prints everything as a string.

Is there a way to make it print some kind of data that can be easily parsed, such as a JSON or something?

How are GUIs like git-gui for Windows or Gitkraken getting the output?

If you know another program that works like that, then please tell me the approach I can use.

You could use git <command> --porcelain to get more machine-readable output. For example, If you ran git status on a repo with no changes, you would get some unnecessary info, like a prompt to push for example. But if you ran git status --porcelain, there would be zero output — Siddharth Shyniben
– Siddharth Shyniben, Commented Jun 12, 2021 at 8:35

Bryan Oakley · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-11 20:58:46Z

3

There are libraries for working with git in many languages. For example, you can use python's gitpython or ruby's ruby-git, etc.

For example:

from git import Repo
repo = Repo("/path/to/a/repo")
for file in repo.untracked_files:
    print("untracked file:", file)

edited Aug 11, 2017 at 20:58

answered Aug 11, 2017 at 20:33

Bryan Oakley

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Philippe · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-12 14:00:34Z

You've got 2 possibilities with their own advantages and trade offs.

Use the git exe

Pro:

Up to date
do not behave differently than the official client, contrary to a library (major advantage)

Cons:

painful to use and parse output
need to support different versions

But some commands could output something easier to parse. See for example parameters --porcelain or --outputin the command help: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-status

Use a library in your language of choice.

You could try to use a pure implementation in your language of choice or use a wrapper around the well maintained library 'libgit2' https://libgit2.github.com/

Pro:

Really easier to use
performance could be better (no need to read git files at every command)

Cons:

use could be a little different or features limited (especially for language pure implementations)

Ps: which language and which system do you target? Why not improve an existing GUI? Because that's a lot of hard work...

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