Option to dry run

[aulisius]

Really useful tool! I think there should be a dry run option just to see what changes the tool will generate before applying them.

I would like to contribute on this, if you do consider such an option

Thanks,
Faizaan.

[hzoo]

👍 I certainly understand why you'd want that but not sure how it would work exactly?

The output is just a change in the files so you would just do a git reset to go back and git diff to view? Unless you have something of an idea for it?

[aulisius]

I was thinking, the output would actually be like a git diff. The only change is that it applies no changes. There isn't any special case I had in mind.

[hzoo]

If you are already using git and run git diff after running the command, it is necessary to have a --dry-run option? The only thing you couldn't reset is if we automatically run npm install again which isn't implemented yet either and even that you could just run again.

[aulisius]

I do agree with you. It's not really necessary

[hzoo]

Unless we think a better default is --dry and to use --write for the actual run?

[aulisius]

Well. That does sound interesting. I think this is something that needs to be discussed with more ppl. Some might prefer to go ahead with the change and some (like me) might want the dry run first before accepting changes.

[ljharb]

Yes please make the default safe.

[ljharb]

Separately, having a dry run option that exits zero when no changes are made is always useful for CIs, to avoid having to manually check and reset a git diff.

[hzoo]

I guess it depends what do you mean by safe? It modifies files in the git repo which can be reset. What's the usecase for running in CI other than if we figure out how to make it as a service to auto PR some repos?

[ljharb]

I'm not sure off the top of my head :-) but in general, every tool I've ever used that modifies files, I've ended up needing a way to validate that the command has been ran in CI.

[aulisius]

Can I take this up? @hzoo

[noahlemen]

@aulisius are you still interested in working on this? feel free to start a PR to continue this conversation in if so! i think this would be useful for #52

[aulisius]

Sure @kedromelon. Will be creating a PR by end of this week.