brew list sometimes returns 1 when all arguments are installed

[cbandy]

brew doctor output

Your system is ready to brew.

Verification

• My "brew doctor output" above says Your system is ready to brew. and am still able to reproduce my issue.
• I ran brew update twice and am still able to reproduce my issue.
• This issue's title and/or description do not reference a single formula e.g. brew install wget. If they do, open an issue at https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/new/choose instead.

brew config output

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.3.3
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: e130e47f23b8b806096f9ec4f2c193213b8ec908
Last commit: 3 days ago
Core tap JSON: 05 Jun 19:59 UTC
Core cask tap JSON: 05 Jun 19:59 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /opt/homebrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: ["--appdir=~/Applications", "--require-sha"]
HOMEBREW_EDITOR: nvim
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 12
Homebrew Ruby: 3.3.2 => /opt/homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/3.3.2/bin/ruby
CPU: dodeca-core 64-bit arm_lobos
Clang: 15.0.0 build 1500
Git: 2.45.2 => /opt/homebrew/bin/git
Curl: 8.6.0 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 14.5-arm64
CLT: 15.3.0.0.1.1708646388
Xcode: N/A
Rosetta 2: false

What were you trying to do (and why)?

I was using brew list to see if I had some things installed.

What happened (include all command output)?

I noticed that listing two things printed what I expected, but the exit code indicated failure.

$ brew list dive rancher ; echo $?
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/dive/0.12.0/bin/dive
==> App
~/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app (631 files, 1.4GB)
1

Listing them separately returns successfully.

$ brew list ; echo $?
==> Formulae
…

==> Casks
…
0

$ brew list dive ; echo $?
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/dive/0.12.0/bin/dive
0

$ brew list rancher ; echo $?
==> App
~/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app (631 files, 1.4GB)
0

🤔 Strangely, redirecting the output also succeeds...

$ brew list dive rancher > /dev/null ; echo $?
0

What did you expect to happen?

I expected brew list dive rancher to return a success status/code when both dive and rancher are installed.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions (by running brew commands)

brew install dive rancher && brew list dive rancher ; echo $?

[issyl0]

I can't reproduce this with two formulae, or for two casks, but I can reproduce it with a formula and a cask. 🤔

$ brew list ripgrep jq; echo $?
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ripgrep/13.0.0/.crates.toml
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ripgrep/13.0.0/.crates2.json
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ripgrep/13.0.0/bin/rg
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ripgrep/13.0.0/etc/bash_completion.d/rg.bash
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ripgrep/13.0.0/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/rg.fish
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ripgrep/13.0.0/share/man/man1/rg.1
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/ripgrep/13.0.0/share/zsh/site-functions/_rg
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/bin/jq
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/include/ (2 files)
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/lib/libjq.1.dylib
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/lib/pkgconfig/libjq.pc
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/lib/ (2 other files)
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/share/doc/ (4 files)
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/share/man/man1/jq.1
0

$ brew list postman discord; echo $?
==> App
/Applications/Postman.app (56 files, 492.9MB)
==> App
/Applications/Discord.app (115 files, 374.9MB)
0

$ brew list jq postman; echo $?
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/bin/jq
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/include/ (2 files)
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/lib/libjq.1.dylib
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/lib/pkgconfig/libjq.pc
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/lib/ (2 other files)
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/share/doc/ (4 files)
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/jq/1.7.1/share/man/man1/jq.1
==> App
/Applications/Postman.app (56 files, 492.9MB)
1