Re: git-ls-new-files & make patch, pull, etc.

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Sep 6, 2005, 21:08 UTC
Message-ID: <7virxdj45i.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <431DFF30.7010009@linuxmachines.com>

Jeff Carr <jcarr@linuxmachines.com> writes:

> ... If I remember
> correctly, there was some threads at the beginning of git about how
> datestamps were not accurate so there was no point in setting them(?) Or
> maybe I mis-understood.

The point of those thread was that clocks on machines tend to be not so accurate and we should not take the timestamps *too* seriously. We do record the time as accurately as the clock is maintained on the machine the commit is made, provided if the user does not override it with the GIT_COMMIT_DATE environment variable with a bogus value.

The way you use it to show changes made in a certain timeperiod is a good example that the information is useful. The argument against relying on timestamp too much in that thread you are remembering was that it should not be used to see which commit came before which other commit when there is no parent-child ancestry between them. It is still a useful hint, and we do use it as such, but as the recent merge-base fixes show it is just a hint and relying on it too much tends to screw things up.