Repo Command Reference

Certainly! Let's break down the command you shared:

repo forall -c 'git status --short' | grep -v "^$"

This command is used in a repo-managed Android source code environment to show a concise list of modified files across all git repositories, excluding empty lines. Here’s a detailed explanation:

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🔧 Full Breakdown

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1. repo forall -c 'git status --short'

🛠 What is repo forall?

repo forall is a command provided by the Repo tool used to manage multiple Git repositories (as Android source code is split across many repos).

• It executes a given shell command in each Git repository managed by repo.

📘 Syntax:

repo forall [project-list] -c [command]

🧠 In this case:

-c 'git status --short'

Means: for each project (repository) in the repo workspace, run:

git status --short

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2. git status --short

This is a concise version of git status, which shows the status of working directory changes in a short, machine-readable format.

✅ Output format:

Each line corresponds to one file and shows its status using two-character flags:

Symbol	Meaning
??	Untracked file
M	Modified in the working directory
M	Modified in the index (staged)
A	Added to index
D	Deleted from index
D	Deleted from working directory

For example:

 M app/MainActivity.kt
?? new_script.sh

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3. | grep -v "^$"

This part filters out empty lines from the output.

• grep -v means: exclude lines that match the given pattern.

• "^$" is a regular expression that matches an empty line:

  • ^ = start of line

  • $ = end of line

  • So ^$ = line with nothing on it.

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✅ Final Outcome

This command gives you:

• A summary of all file-level changes (new, modified, deleted, etc.) in each repo.

• Filters out empty lines to only show meaningful status information.

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📌 Example Output

Let’s say you have 3 Git repos in your Android source tree.

Here’s an example output:

 M AndroidManifest.xml
?? scripts/deploy.sh
 M src/com/example/MainActivity.java
 D res/layout/activity_main.xml

This tells you which files have changes across the entire workspace, making it easier to review your own changes before committing.

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✅ Use Case

You asked:

“repo status is showing too many files, I wish to see only changes that I have made”

This command is perfect for your need, because:

• repo status also shows remote tracking and branch information.

• repo forall -c 'git status --short' shows only local working directory changes.

• The grep -v "^$" keeps the output clean.

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🚀 Bonus Tip: Show repo path with filename

If you also want to see the repo/project name before each line, use:

repo forall -c 'echo $REPO_PATH && git status --short' | grep -v "^$"

This will prefix each set of changes with the relative path of that repo.

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Let me know if you want a more advanced version (e.g., show only staged files, or only modified files).