Git Bash script to check whether repo has any commits?

Question

I have a script that i need to act differently based on if there are any, that is one or more, commits. What is the best way to do this?

In pseudo code it would look something like this..

#!/bin/bash

if [[ `git log_count` == "0" ]]; then
    echo "No commits exist for this repo."
    # Do stuff..
else
    echo "One or more commits do exist!"
    # Do other stuff
fi

Any ideas?

VonC · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-16 15:18:19Z

2

You could also check the result of:

git rev-parse --verify HEAD

(after this thread:)

It's a plumbing command, and so less likely to change its behavior versus "git diff".

The seems more obvious to me. rev-parse --verify is meant to ask "is this a valid object name?"

It is slightly different from your show-ref.
Yours asks "is there anything in refs/heads in this repository?"
Mine asks "does the current HEAD exist?"

In practice, they are both reasonable tests, since once you have a branch, it is very difficult to get HEAD to point to something invalid short of editing manually to some bogus value. But you might prefer one over the other depending on what you are trying to say.

answered Mar 16, 2011 at 15:18

VonC

1.4m569 gold badges4.8k silver badges5.7k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

horsh · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-16 15:08:09Z

0

The trivial from the top of my head is

$ git log | egrep -c  "^commit"
1493

answered Mar 16, 2011 at 15:08

horsh

2,77919 silver badges34 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Git Bash script to check whether repo has any commits?

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related