Re: [PATCH] Add option to git-commit to allow empty log messages

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 5, 2010, 17:58 UTC
Message-ID: <20100405175822.GA32083@progeny.tock>
In-Reply-To: <o2h51dd1af81004050550v9427b9flfb13a9e1ad4056a@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

Show 7 quoted lines

> Learning to use and switching to
> something like git-fast-import(1) or git-commit-tree(1) is too big of
> a hurdle for small throwaway scripts that take ~1m to write and aren't
> big dedicated importers like snerp-vortex.
> 
> There's probably a lot of code out there doing `git commit -m"Yet
> another revision"' from some cron job.

FWIW, I have no strong opinion about whether to add this --allow-empty-message option. Maybe it would make something more convenient for someone, though that has to be weighed against it making it harder for everyone else to read the manual.

Instead, I just wanted to suggest that it is really worth the time to learn to use ‘git commit-tree’. Mostly because it does not take much time to learn at all.

Hint:

	parent=HEAD && : or whatever &&
	tree=$(git write-tree) &&
	printf "%s\n" message |
	commit=$(git commit-tree "$tree" -p "$parent") &&
	git update-ref refs/heads/somebranch "$commit"

It is a very flexible tool, and I think you will find yourself fighting with git much less if you use tools like it in situations that would be unusual for a human to run into.

Cheers, Jonathan