git status --porcelain is actually good for larger repositories

[julienw]

Hey!
I found your blogpost about checking if your git working directory is dirty in:
https://github.com/remarkablemark/remarkablemark.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2017/2017-10-12-check-git-dirty.md

I can't comment with disqus so I thought I would left this as an issue, I hope you don't mind :-)

At the end you mention --porcelain, stating that it's less efficient for larger repositories. Well that's not been my experience, this is the command I use on very large repositories:

git status --porcelain --ignore-submodules -unormal

I use it as part of a larger "git prompt" command I use in BASH:

function _git_prompt() {
  local branch=`LC_ALL=C git symbolic-ref --short -q HEAD 2>&1`
  if ! [[ "$branch" =~ ot\ a\ git\ repo ]]; then
    if [[ -z "$branch" ]]; then
      # This command doesn't give the most obvious name sometimes
      branch=`LC_ALL=C git describe --all --contains --abbrev=4 HEAD 2> /dev/null`
    fi

    local git_status="`LC_ALL=C git status --porcelain --ignore-submodules -unormal 2>&1`"
    if [[ -z "$git_status" ]]; then
            local ansi=42
        elif [[ ! "$git_status" =~ ?? ]]; then
            local ansi=45
        else
            local ansi=43
        fi
        test "$branch" != master -a "$branch" != main || branch=' '
        echo -n '\[\e[0;37;'"$ansi"';1m\]'"$branch"'\[\e[0m\] '
    fi
}

From my experience this is notably faster than alternatives in very large repositories.

Hope this helps :-)

[remarkablemark]

Thank you for the comment @julienw! I'll update the blog post with your findings.