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sp = "!echo name && read name"

I've added this to my aliases list. When I run it "name" is printed as expected and I can input something into read; but on carriage returning and trying echo $name, nothing's there.

It works fine when I directly run the command in the terminal and whatever I type in gets stored in $name.

I also have another problem which was the first one and I was trying to simplify it as much as I can to zone in on the issue above but here's the original:

sp = "!read branch\"?Branch Name: \""

Whenever I run this via git sp, I get the error read branch"?Branch Name:": line 0: read: `branch?Branch Name:': not a valid identifier

Copy pasting the first bit of the error which is the command text into the terminal and directly running it works perfectly so it can't be some sort of invalid hidden character somewhere tho I can't be certain how git is replacing stuff.

I'm on macos monterey using terminal.app and zsh. Thank you.

volls
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  • What do you try to achieve here with this? – Romain Valeri Mar 18 '22 at 16:20
  • it's a part of a more elaborate alias that I would like to create to improve my workflow which requires querying for a branch name. If there're alternates to using read for user input, I'd be happy to learn about them. – volls Mar 18 '22 at 16:26

1 Answers1

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[With the original desired alias, you get:]

read branch"?Branch Name:": line 0: read: `branch?Branch Name:': not a valid identifier

Git runs aliases by feeding them to /bin/sh. The:

read var?"prompt string"

syntax is peculiar to the zsh read built in (see, e.g., https://zsh.sourceforge.io/Doc/Release/Shell-Builtin-Commands.html); in /bin/sh that's an attempt to read into a variable named var?prompt string, which is not a valid variable name because of the embedded question-mark and space.

To use a zsh script directly, make the script executable, place it in your $PATH, and name it git-sp. Then:

git sp

will run your git-sp script. Since your script will begin with #! /bin/zsh, you will get zsh and not plain sh, and you will have access to your desired read built-in. Also, you won't have to deal with all the complications produced by wedging the entire command in as a single line alias:

When I run [a simplified version,] "name" is printed as expected and I can input something into read; but on carriage returning and trying echo $name, nothing's there.

Each command is run by a separate shell invocation. Values read into variables persist until that shell invocation exits (or you override or unset them in that same invocation); then they evaporate. To store something more permanently, use the file system. Consider storing settings in the git config databases (--global and per-repository): you can make up your own names here. You do run the risk that some future Git release (git version 3.1415?) might steal your name and use it for its own purposes, but depending on what namespace you choose, you can make that pretty unlikely. For instance:

git config --global torek.user.setting1 value1
git config --global torek.user.setting2 value2

I'm only in trouble here if future-Git decides to use torek.* settings. (Perhaps it's being worked on by a Slovenian on a Tuesday.)

torek
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  • this is brilliant! I had no idea that git was executing stuff using sh and not zsh. Instead of doing anything with globals, I just edited the aliases to use the sh read syntax instead of zsh and it worked like a charm. Thank you very much for answering and clearing up this basic concept that I was really struggling with :) – volls Mar 19 '22 at 05:33