Re: bug report: dates on diff

From: Todd Lewis <utoddl@email.unc.edu>
Date: Jul 6, 2017, 17:32 UTC
Message-ID: <53f97d43-6984-6a46-bde2-a8cf64e7bb9e@email.unc.edu>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqo9sxfscp.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On 07/06/2017 12:22 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> If you didn't create this repository back in 2012, then the syntax
> "master@{01-01-2012}" that asks "Back at the beginning of 2012, what
> object did the master branch point at?" does not have a sensible
> answer.  That can be seen in the warning you got from Git.
> 
> Hope this clarifies.

Thanks; it does explain what I saw, and even makes some sense.

However, it does leave me scratching my head about how to accomplish what I set out to do, or just how to reference commits by their dates as displayed by git log w/o either changing the system time/date when committing historic data (which seems like a total no-no), or making multiple passes over "get log" to determine how to ref. Perhaps there's a way to patch the log to match dates recorded in relevant objects?

Trying not to sound snide, but, what's the point of "--date=" on commits if you can't use it later? Granted, things always seem harder until you understand how the work. Thanks again.