git post receive - How to test git hooks

Question

Since "testing" is a common use for a Git hook, my question is hard to search for.

I'm writing a fairly involved git post-receive hook and want to know what the best way to test it is. Currently my process is:

• make changes to post-receive in a dummy "remote" repo
• make a change to a dummy local repo
• commit change in dummy local repo
• push change to dummy remote repo

Is there any easier way to test this? Ideally it would look like:

• make change(s) to post-receive in a dummy repo
• issue "magic" command to test post-receive

Perhaps I can "reissue" a previous push or have the remote repo act as though it just received a push with a specific hash?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11512155/how-to-test-git-hooks

Answer 1

Write a hook that just records its arguments/environment and dumps that to a file. Then you can just re-invoke the real hook at your leisure with the same environment/arguments and it will act as though you just re-issued the exact same push.