From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:41:27 GMT
Subject: Re: RFD: fast-import is picky with author names (and maybe it should - but how much so?)
Message-ID: <20121112214127.GA10531@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAMP44s1m8sAD9D0F-6b=+dm_AvLb_4_f7h=3A_VMYMDUEcTW7g@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 07:48:14PM +0100, Felipe Contreras wrote:

> >   3. Exporters should not use it if they have any broken-down
> >      representation at all. Even knowing that the first half is a human
> >      name and the second half is something else would give it a better
> >      shot at cleaning than fast-import would get.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by this. If they have name and email, then
> sure, it's easy.

But not as easy as just printing it. What if you have this:

  name="Peff <angle brackets> King"
  email="<peff@peff.net>"

Concatenating them does not produce a valid git author name. Sending the
concatenation through fast-import's cleanup function would lose
information (namely, the location of the boundary between name and
email).

Similarly, one might have other structured data (e.g., CVS username)
where the structure is a useful hint, but some conversion to name+email
is still necessary.

-Peff