Pre-commit hooks for readme don't work on Windows

[christopherkenny]

Create a package on Windows with:

devtools::create('somepackage')

which uses an Rmd-based readme:

usethis::use_readme_rmd()

This creates a pre-commit hook. Now, to push to GitHub, you are required on Windows to either delete the file named .git/hooks/pre-commit or force commits to go with --no-verify.

On a Mac, you can just make sure you run:

devtools::build_readme()

I believe that is the intended behavior. However, on Windows, you always see the error:

error: cannot spawn .git/hooks/pre-commit: No such file or directory

Looking through my old notes, I've seen this problem since (at least) March 2021. (Sorry, I probably should have made this issue much sooner.) I can replicate this on 3 different Windows machines.

But, this makes sense, as it's written for linux/macos machines, as the pre-hook commit starts with:

#!/bin/bash

To be clear, Windows users can set up non-standard workarounds to make this type of syntax work and may opt into that.

Can the readme pre-hook commit be opt-in, rather than default? This is especially important for people who collaborate across platforms or develop packages across them.

[jonthegeek]

I use this pre-commit hook without issues on Windows. I don't use it directly for git, but I wonder if having git bash installed changes how this works (I have it installed). It might be helpful to have more information about how you're interacting with git.

[christopherkenny]

Interesting. On each system, I have Git Bash installed. I interact with git either through the command line or through GitHub Desktop (again, the same across all three systems).