Re: Non-error messages appears in STDERR

Re: Non-error messages appears in STDERR

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi,

Pok Man Lau wrote:

> I am writing a class library to wrap bin\git.exe and trying to be a
> bit more accurate on error handling. Here are something interesting I
> found so far with git version 1.7.2.3.msysgit.0
>
> Some of the command output returned by git.exe appeared to be STDERR
> instead of STDOUT even they are not error message.
>
> For example:
> checkout <branch_name>
>
> I would expected the message "Switched to branch '<branch_name>'" to
> be a STDOUT, but it appears to be STDERR.

Yes, generally speaking the intent is the "result" or output that
could be conceivably parsed will go to stdout, while progress
information goes to stderr.

I think it would make sense to document this somewhere, e.g., in the
"git help cli" text.  Do you think that's the right place?  Any ideas
for wording?

Thanks much,
Jonathan