Handle multiple pre-commit hooks

Should all of them be combined into one single large pre-commit script ?

Yes and no: you can only declare one pre-commit script, so this script should be in charge to:

• call the actual pre-commit scripts
• chose an order for those scripts to be called.

So:

• one pre-commit script
• calling multiple scripts, each one allowing or not (with their exit status) the commit to proceed.

You can only have one pre-commit script, so you'll have to use that one to call multiple other scripts.

Create an executable /PATH/TO/GIT/.git/hooks/pre-commit file, with these contents:

#!/bin/bash

cd "$(dirname "$0")/pre-commit.d"

for hook in *; do
    bash $hook
    RESULT=$?
    if [ $RESULT != 0 ]; then
        echo "pre-commit.d/$hook returned non-zero: $RESULT, abort commit"
        exit $RESULT
    fi
done

exit 0

Then put all your pre-commit scripts inside a new pre-commit.d/ directory.

/PATH/TO/GIT/.git/hooks/
└── pre-commit.d
    └── SCRIPT1
    └── SCRIPT2

Make sure the script files are executable. Remember that the working dir will be /PATH/TO/GIT/.git/hooks/pre-commit.d/ by default inside the scripts.

You can use a delegating script that only calls others scripts (subhooks):

https://gist.github.com/carlos-jenkins/89da9dcf9e0d528ac978311938aade43

Usage:

Make your building system to create a symbolic link in the Git hooks directory to this script with the name of the hook you want to attend.

For example, pre-commit.

This hook will then execute, in alphabetic order, all executables files (subhooks) found under a folder named after the hook type you're attending suffixed with .d.

For example, pre-commit.d.

How it could look:

.git/hooks/
 |_ pre-commit -> ../../tools/git/multihooks.py
 |_ pre-commit.d/
    |_ 01-cpp_coding_standard
    |_ 02-python_coding_standard
    |_ 03-something_else

This requires Python3, but you could came with something similar using other technologies.