Check if pull needed in Git

Question

How do I check whether the remote repository has changed and I need to pull?

Now I use this simple script:

git pull --dry-run | grep -q -v \'Already          


        

Answer 1

After reading many answers and multiple posts, and spending half a day trying various permutations, this is what I have come up with.

If you are on Windows, you may run this script in Windows using Git Bash provided by Git for Windows (installation or portable).

This script requires arguments

- local path e.g. /d/source/project1
- Git URL e.g. https://username@bitbucket.org/username/project1.git
- password

if a password should not be entered on the command line in plain text,
then modify the script to check if GITPASS is empty; do not
replace and let Git prompt for a password

The script will

- Find the current branch
- Get the SHA1 of the remote on that branch
- Get the SHA1 of the local on that branch
- Compare them.

If there is a change as printed by the script, then you may proceed to fetch or pull. The script may not be efficient, but it gets the job done for me.

Update - 2015-10-30: stderr to dev null to prevent printing the URL with the password to the console.

#!/bin/bash

# Shell script to check if a Git pull is required.

LOCALPATH=$1
GITURL=$2
GITPASS=$3

cd $LOCALPATH
BRANCH="$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)"

echo
echo git url = $GITURL
echo branch = $BRANCH

# Bash replace - replace @ with :password@ in the GIT URL
GITURL2="${GITURL/@/:$GITPASS@}"
FOO="$(git ls-remote $GITURL2 -h $BRANCH 2> /dev/null)"
if [ "$?" != "0" ]; then
  echo cannot get remote status
  exit 2
fi
FOO_ARRAY=($FOO)
BAR=${FOO_ARRAY[0]}
echo [$BAR]

LOCALBAR="$(git rev-parse HEAD)"
echo [$LOCALBAR]
echo

if [ "$BAR" == "$LOCALBAR" ]; then
  #read -t10 -n1 -r -p 'Press any key in the next ten seconds...' key
  echo No changes
  exit 0
else
  #read -t10 -n1 -r -p 'Press any key in the next ten seconds...' key
  #echo pressed $key
  echo There are changes between local and remote repositories.
  exit 1
fi