Question

I want to run git commands from c#. below is the coded I had written and it does execute the git command but I am not able to capture the return value. When I manually run it from command line this is the output I get.

When I run from the program the only thing I get is

Cloning into 'testrep'...

Rest of the info is not capture, but the command is executed successfully.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("git.exe");

        startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        startInfo.WorkingDirectory = @"D:\testrep";
        startInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
        startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        startInfo.Arguments = "clone http://tk1:tk1@localhost/testrep.git";

        Process process = new Process();
        process.StartInfo = startInfo;
        process.Start();

        List<string> output = new List<string>();
        string lineVal = process.StandardOutput.ReadLine();

        while (lineVal != null)
        {

            output.Add(lineVal);
            lineVal = process.StandardOutput.ReadLine();

        }

        int val = output.Count();
        process.WaitForExit();

    }
}

Answer 1

From the manual page for git clone:

–progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default when it is attached to
a terminal, unless -q is specified. This flag forces progress status even if the standard
error stream is not directed to a terminal.

The last three lines in the output when running git clone interactively are sent to standard error, not standard output. They won’t show up there when you run the command from your program, however, since it’s not an interactive terminal. You could force them to appear, but the output isn’t going to be anything usable for a program to parse (lots of \rs to update the progress values).

You are better off not parsing the string output at all, but looking at the integer return value of git clone. If it’s nonzero, you had an error (and there will probably be something in standard error that you can show to your user).