Am Mon, 09 Dec 2019 13:04:14 -0800
schrieb Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>:

> Olaf Hering <olaf@aepfle.de> writes:
> > Is there a way to detect (from a script) if the current working tree is in state 'merge'?  
> The first step is to define what "state 'merge'" is, I think.

I do a fresh clone of a remote repository, checkout the target branch,
then merge some other branch into it. Usually the 'git status' command
gives me a list of files. In case it creates some output, 'git commit'
is called. In case there is '^UU' in the output, manual intervention
is required prior commit.

In this case the resolved conflict resulted in no changes. I do remember
a plain 'git status' showed something like 'a merge is going on'.
Apparently there is no easy way to get this state from a git command.
But as you said I may be able to test for existence of files in the
.git directory. I will try to recreate the state to repeat this merge.

> Why are you scripting around "git commit"?  Doesn't "git commit"
> refrain from creating an empty commit when there is nothing to
> commit anyway, unless it is recording a merge whose result happens
> to be a no-op?

'git commit' errors out if there is nothing to commit.
But in this case it would have to create a merge commit.

Olaf