Git multi cherry pick with Bash throwing error

Question

I am trying to implement Git cherry pick for multiple commit Ids at once. But it fails, or either this is not how it should be used.

I am trying to use bash command from here : https://stackoverflow.com/a/2553705/9614476

  #!/bin/bash

  if [ -z $1 ]; then
      echo "Equivalent to running git-cherry-pick on each of the commits in the range specified.";
      echo "";
      echo "Usage:  $0 start^..end";
      echo "";
      exit 1;
  fi

  git rev-list --reverse --topo-order $1 | while read rev
  do
    git cherry-pick $rev || break
  done

I created a target for ant like this :

<target name="git_multi_cherry_pick">
    <echo message="START: MultiMerge"/>
    <exec executable="C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe" osfamily="windows" failonerror="true">
        <arg value="${gitMultiCherryPick}"/>
        <arg value="${gitCommitIds}"/>
    </exec>
    <exec executable="/bin/bash" osfamily="unix" failonerror="true">
        <arg value="${gitMultiCherryPick}"/>
        <arg value="${gitCommitIds}"/>
    </exec>
</target>

And I am using AntExecutor from Java to call the above target. AntExecutor code can be found here - https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-ant/blob/master/src/test/java/org/asciidoctor/ant/AntExecutor.java

        Map<String, String> propertiesMap = new HashMap<>();
        propertiesMap.put("gitMultiCherryPick", "git-multi-cherry-pick.sh");
        propertiesMap.put("gitCommitIds", "204a3e81712000d09a2794cc4ef1d090c4280f4e,9c5242d6a15b14032e9fc1f408be3c91026b1e1f");
        List<String> sf_build = AntExecutor.executeAntTask("FullPath \\resources\\build\\build.xml",
                "git_multi_cherry_pick", propertiesMap);

But it fails with this error :

The ' characters around the executable and arguments are not part of the command., 204a3e81712000d09a2794cc4ef1d090c4280f4e,9c5242d6a15b14032e9fc1f408be3c91026b1e1f, git-multi-cherry-pick.sh, fatal: ambiguous argument '204a3e81712000d09a2794cc4ef1d090c4280f4e,9c5242d6a15b14032e9fc1f408be3c91026b1e1f':

I think that is not how we pass the commitIds. Has anyone used the above bash script before?

Answer 1

I think you are actually looking for git rebase, not git cherry-pick (both of which can perform the same work). git cherry-pick in recent Git release can even process multiple commits directly, without the need for an external loop.

To address your specific question: when specifying several commit refs on the command line, those need to be separated by your shells IFS (input field separator), which is usually whitespace and rarely a comma (,).

Possible solutions:

• Change your map value to 204a3e81712000d09a2794cc4ef1d090c4280f4e 9c5242d6a15b14032e9fc1f408be3c91026b1e1f (pay attention to quoting in your script)
• Set IFS in your script to ','

---

git cherry-pick can already pick multiple commits at once (see documentation). You still need to fix the value in your map from comma to blank, but then you could simplify your shell script.

This also fixes the problem of using rev-list without a range, but only 2 starting points (abc123 def456 instead of abc123..def456). It would traverse all of your history, not only commits between your two refs. Drop the rev-list and utilize cherry-pick directly:

#!/bin/sh

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "Equivalent to running git-cherry-pick on each of the commits in the range specified.";
    echo "";
    echo "Usage: $0 start^..end";
    echo "";
    exit 1;
fi


# do not quote parameter, we need potential whitespace preserved
git cherry-pick $1

(and you do not need bash, sh will totally suffice for a script like this)