git !alias that would work in both bash and Powershell

Question

How would you implement a git alias that executes external commands, and works from both bash and Powershell?

I currently have a gitPrune alias set up for both bash (in my .bash_profile) and Powershell (in profile.ps1), which cleans up branches that are no longer needed:

# bash
alias gitPrune="git remote prune origin; git branch --merged | grep -vEe '^\*| master$' | sed 's/.*/git branch -dv \0/e'"    

# Powershell
function gitPrune { git remote prune origin; git branch --merged | Select-String -NotMatch '^\*| master$' | %{git branch -dv $_.ToString().Trim()} }

This way, I can gitPrune from both git-bash (on Windows) and from Powershell. Now I'd like to move this into my .gitconfig, to keep together with other git-related aliases. However, the same .gitconfig will be used regardless of whether I have a Powershell console or the git-bash terminal open. How do I implement this "dual" command using the git-config "external command" syntax?

[alias]
    myPrune = "! ..."

Yes, your shell is not important. Git will spawn its own shell to execute shell command. And it would be the same shell regardless the shell you use (if any) to execute Git. — user4003407
– user4003407, Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 21:19

Grisha Levit · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-06 20:03:24Z

1

When git uses the shell to execute an alias, the shell used is a fixed compile-time option. It's generally going to be /bin/sh.

So you don't need to worry about the results being different and can just use the syntax you had in your bash alias without worrying about powershell. To demonstrate:

$ cat .git/config
[alias]
    shellpath = !pid=$$ && ps -o comm= $pid

$ bash -c 'git shellpath'
/bin/sh
$ pwsh -c 'git shellpath'
/bin/sh

answered Jul 6, 2018 at 20:03

Grisha Levit

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1 Comment

Tala Over a year ago

There's this peculiar case when you try to pipe some xargs, since there is no xargs in Windows and yet if git uses a compiled shell, it tries to reach for an xargs program and fails. using powershell style @().foreach collecting also fails since it's not how /bin/sh works

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