Force commit date

Hi all,

Some time ago, I used to make 7zip backups of my project directory to keep an history of my changes. (I've kept all of them in separated 7z files) I was then living in darkness. (Even though I tried svn but was somehow not happy with it) Now I've found the light, and git is the best tool around (along with Hg I guess).

I am learning git at the moment and I would like to restore all my 7zipped backups one after the other, use meld to apply each change in the code + directory structure and then git to commit each of them, chronologically, to finally obtain a complete git history of my changes (I even have "commit commentaries" in a special text file, yes I tried to do things properly with basic tools.)

This should be feasible, but what would be very cool in this very special case is if I could force the commit date to reflect the real date each "commit" (read : "zip") was done with my old method in last year, and not the date of my convertion to git.

If it is not, that's not a big deal, but I'd really like to know how to do this, and have my different projects on a git history. (I even have one or two "secondary branches")

There might be an option I am not aware of. (I have seen on this forum / mailing list some people playing with dates but it was the case of mailboxes and "git am") http://n2.nabble.com/how-to-force-a-commit-date-matching-info-from-a-mbox---td2200613.html Remember I'm a beginner trying to learn git, so please bear with me.

Thank you!