Re: [PATCH 1/2] transport-helper: report errors properly

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 5:15 PM, Jeff King [off-list ref] wrote:

From: Felipe Contreras <redacted>

If a push fails because the remote-helper died (with
fast-export), the user does not see any error message. We do
correctly die with a failed exit code, as we notice that the
helper has died while reading back the ref status from the
helper. However, we don't print any message.  This is OK if
the helper itself printed a useful error message, but we
cannot count on that; let's let the user know that the
helper failed.

In the long run, it may make more sense to propagate the
error back up to push, so that it can present the usual
status table and give a nicer message. But this is a much
simpler fix that can help immediately.

While we're adding tests, let's also confirm that the
remote-helper dying is also detect when importing refs. We

s/detect/detected/

currently do so robustly when the helper uses the "done"
feature (and that is what we test).  We cannot do so
reliably when the helper does not use the "done" feature,
but it is not even worth testing; the right solution is for
the helper to start using "done".

Suggested-by: Jeff King <redacted>
Signed-off-by: Felipe Contreras <redacted>
Signed-off-by: Jeff King <redacted>