Re: What shall we do with the GECOS field again?

From: Nikolai Weibull <mailing-lists.git@rawuncut.elitemail.org>
Date: Sep 20, 2005, 10:31 UTC
Message-ID: <20050920103115.GA8979@puritan.pnetwork>
In-Reply-To: <7v8xxsfqrw.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Nikolai Weibull <mailing-lists.git@rawuncut.elitemail.org> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> > If we stop using GECOS, then can we please start using $EMAIL (or
> > perhaps use it regardless of whether we use GECOS or not)?  A lot of
> > applications seem to look for $EMAIL and I think that it's universal
> > enough for git to use it as well.  To me it seems that both
> > GIT_AUTHOR_NAME, GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL, GIT_COMMITTER_NAME, and
> > GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL can use it,...

> I am not convinced $EMAIL is used as widely as you claim above (could
> you give a list of applications please?), but if it is that sounds
> like a sensible idea.

I was sadly mistaken. It doesn't seem to be so well-used after all. Here's a list of applications that use it:

* mutt (the only one that really counts)
* darcs (which also uses DARCS_EMAIL)
* various debian utilities (who cares)
* Vim's changelog package (which I have written, so that doesn't count)

Quite a sad list, so I suppose that there's really no point in it...,
        nikolai

-- 
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
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