using hooks with git source control from Matlab. Hooks that work from outside Matlab are not executed from within.

Hello Everyone,

I'm working with Matlab 2016a try to get the source control going. Commit, Push, Fetch etc work fine, from both the context menu in the Current Folder Window and from the GUI shipped with git. But when I implement a server-sided hook in the remote repository, Matlab fails me by ignoring the hook. When I commit from outside Matlab, the hook works.

hook-file is located in ..\remote_repo\hooks by the name 'pre-receive' without extension. Source Code:

 #!/usr/bin/env python

 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 import sys
 plt.figure()
 plt.show()

 sys.exit(1)

The hook is written for testing purposes only. It opens a matplotlib window and when the window is closed, an error is thrown as the Push-Operation is aborted.

As I mentioned, when I push my commit from outside Matlab via the GUI, the expected happens, matplotlib-window and error. But when I push from the same local repository to the same remote repository, the push is successful...

Is there a way to execute hooks both server-sided and local ones from Matlab?

Thanks in advance and greetings,

Tobias

[Saurabh Gupta]

MATLAB uses JGit for integration with Git. If the hooks that you intend to use are not supported by JGit, they will not work with MATLAB either.

Which operating system are you using? You may be required to configure cygwin, if you are on Windows, for using Git hooks.

[Tobias Huth]

Dear Saurabh,

The machine I'm working on is a 64-bit Windows 7 Enterprise PC. Assuming that I knew what 'configuring cygwin' meant (which I do not), what would I need to do with it?

With the information that MATLAB uses JGit, I googled a little and came up with: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6232026/egit-hooks-do-not-get-triggered http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31334741/jgit-pre-receive-hook and https://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/t/431852/

I do not fully understand the postings as I'm using neither eclipse nor UNIX BUT I read that JGit is rather a reimplementation of than a wrapper for Git. If so, why do I need to install a version of git, which comes with a GUI and works just fine?

The entries in the forums are rather old, but I didn't come up with more recent information.

As it was mentioned in one of the comments in one of the forums, I set the MATLAB path to my remote repository-path. That made no change.

As I am currently setting up the whole source control thing, I do not know yet, which hooks will be needed in the future. Thus using only a limited set of hooks would be an option, but not the most favoured.

Edit:

I just tried

 system('git push --all')

this resulted in the execution of my hooks...

- Tobias

Answer 1

[Rebecca Nakhoul]

• Starting in R2024a, MATLAB Git integration runs Git hooks with no additional setup. Supported hooks are pre-commit, commit-msg, post-commit, prepare-commit-msg, pre-push, pre-merge-commit, post-checkout, and post-merge. For an example, see Use Git Hooks in MATLAB.
• Before R2024a, to use some Git hooks from within MATLAB, install Cygwin™ and add it to the MATLAB library path. For instructions, see Install Cygwin (Before R2024a). Supported hooks are pre-commit, commit-msg, post-commit, and pre-push.

[Marlos]

Hello @Rebecca Nakhoul,

Thanks for the workflow above.

For some reason it seems that matlab2023 still ignores the hooks (after cygwin properly installed), when the hooks try to parse the commit message and block the commit if a given pattern is not present.

It seemed to accept my hooks to auto-add things to the commit message, but seems to bypass my intention to block a given commit due to the lack of a given pattern.

Any ideas on that?

That was the content of hook.

COMMIT_MSG="$(cat $1)"

PATTERN="^\[ID-[0-9]+]"

if [[ ! ${COMMIT_MSG} =~ $PATTERN ]]; then

echo ""

echo " ERROR! Bad commit message. "

echo " '$COMMIT_MSG' is missing Task Number."

echo " The message needs to start with: [ID-TASKNUMBER]'"

echo ""

exit 1

fi

[Rebecca Nakhoul]

• How about you try something like this:

if ! [[ $COMMIT_MSG =~ $PATTERN ]]; then

exec 1>&2

echo "The message needs to start with: [ID-TASKNUMBER]"

exit 1

fi

• Also, better explicitly specify the shell that it is executiing the script at the top of the hook script:

#!/bin/bash

[Marlos]

Hi @Rebecca Nakhoul,

Many many thanks for the quick reply.

Your proposal works fine!

Answer 2

[James Otterson]

Uping this question - I am having the same problem, but in regard of my local repo hook. I am using Windows, and using python to run the hook. RStudio, VS Code and command line in Matlab (!git commit -m "message") will run my hooks but commiting code using the Matlab GUI Git interface will bypass all hooks.