linux - How do I store the output of a git command in a variable?

Question

What I want is to store the output of a git command (such as git status) inside a variable in a shell script. When I say output, I am talking about the text returned in the terminal on execution of a command, for example: on doing a git status outside my repo:

fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

I tried this:

var=$(git status)

But 'var' did not store anything.

Answer 1

You can use:

var=$(git status 2>&1)

i.e. redirect stderr to stdout and then capture the output.

Otherwise when for error messages are written on stderr and your command: var=$(git status) is only capturing stdout.