Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > +test_cmp_failed_rev_parse () { > + cat >expect && > + test_must_fail git -C "$1" rev-parse "$2" 2>actual.raw && > + sed "s/\($2\)[0-9a-f]*/\1.../" <actual.raw >actual && > + test_cmp expect actual > +} That's dense, especially without a comment (or named variable) that hints readers what the arguments to this helper (and its standard input) ought to be. As long as messages from rev-parse on the error stream never has more than one abbreviated object name on a single line, the above should give us a copy of the message with expected object name abbreviated to $2; otherwise we might be missing a /g in the sed script.