[PATCH] Improve description of git filter-branch.
- From
- Ralf Wildenhues <ralf.wildenhues@gmx.de>
- Date
- Mar 15, 2008, 10:39 UTC
- Message-ID
- <20080315103900.GC14769@ins.uni-bonn.de>
Signed-off-by: Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf.Wildenhues@gmx.de> ---
Now that I learned about filter-branch, here's my share of nits with its documentation, a couple of language nits and inaccuracies.
One problem was that I originally understood the manual in the way that only --env-filter may be used to modify GIT_AUTHOR_NAME etc., and thus I failed to see how with the fixed order I could change that with data taken from the tree.
Also, I think it is quite helpful to state that all filters operate in the shell environment of the script (this may be an issue for a later conversion to a builtin).
Cheers, Ralf
Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt | 25 +++++++++++++------------ 1 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt index 543a1cf..3f7df04 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt @@ -20,12 +20,12 @@ DESCRIPTION Lets you rewrite git revision history by rewriting the branches mentioned in the <rev-list options>, applying custom filters on each revision. Those filters can modify each tree (e.g. removing a file or running -a perl rewrite on all files) or information about each commit. +a perl script on all files) or information about each commit. Otherwise, all information (including original commit times or merge information) will be preserved. The command will only rewrite the _positive_ refs mentioned in the -command line (i.e. if you pass 'a..b', only 'b' will be rewritten). +command line (i.e. if you pass 'a..b', 'a' will not be rewritten). If you specify no filters, the commits will be recommitted without any changes, which would normally have no effect. Nevertheless, this may be useful in the future for compensating for some git bugs or such, @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ Always verify that the rewritten version is correct: The original refs, if different from the rewritten ones, will be stored in the namespace 'refs/original/'. -Note that since this operation is extensively I/O expensive, it might +Note that since this operation is extremely I/O expensive, it might be a good idea to redirect the temporary directory off-disk with the '-d' option, e.g. on tmpfs. Reportedly the speedup is very noticeable. @@ -51,14 +51,15 @@ Filters ~~~~~~~ The filters are applied in the order as listed below. The <command> -argument is always evaluated in shell using the 'eval' command (with the -notable exception of the commit filter, for technical reasons). +argument is always evaluated in the shell context using the 'eval' command +(with the notable exception of the commit filter, for technical reasons). Prior to that, the $GIT_COMMIT environment variable will be set to contain the id of the commit being rewritten. Also, GIT_AUTHOR_NAME, GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL, GIT_AUTHOR_DATE, GIT_COMMITTER_NAME, GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL, -and GIT_COMMITTER_DATE are set according to the current commit. If any -evaluation of <command> returns a non-zero exit status, the whole operation -will be aborted. +and GIT_COMMITTER_DATE are set according to the current commit. The values +of these variables after the filters have run, are used for the new commit. +If any evaluation of <command> returns a non-zero exit status, the whole +operation will be aborted. A 'map' function is available that takes an "original sha1 id" argument and outputs a "rewritten sha1 id" if the commit has been already @@ -71,9 +72,9 @@ OPTIONS ------- --env-filter <command>:: - This is the filter for modifying the environment in which - the commit will be performed. Specifically, you might want - to rewrite the author/committer name/email/time environment + This filter may be used if you only need to modify the environment + in which the commit will be performed. Specifically, you might + want to rewrite the author/committer name/email/time environment variables (see linkgit:git-commit[1] for details). Do not forget to re-export the variables. @@ -149,7 +150,7 @@ definition impossible to preserve signatures at any rate.) -d <directory>:: Use this option to set the path to the temporary directory used for rewriting. When applying a tree filter, the command needs to - temporary checkout the tree to some directory, which may consume + temporarily checkout the tree to some directory, which may consume considerable space in case of large projects. By default it does this in the '.git-rewrite/' directory but you can override that choice by this parameter.
-- 1.5.4.4.603.g1f9f