Re: Clarifying "invalid tag signature file" error message from git filter-branch (and others)

From: Brandon Casey <casey@nrlssc.navy.mil>
Date: Dec 11, 2008, 21:06 UTC
Message-ID: <P7E-5meNX4tXFurN9mnRguFHdJG1jaZYTn6WxFFpECSJ68KyYT3wqQ@cipher.nrlssc.navy.mil>
In-Reply-To: <c5df85930812110214k2e12d926m60856fb630d45e80@mail.gmail.com>

James Youngman wrote:

> What do the errors "error: char88: malformed tagger field" and "fatal:
> invalid tag signature file" and "Could not create new tag object for
> FINDUTILS-4_1-10" signify in the session below?

It means the tagger field in the tag does not follow the correct form. Specifically the testing in git-mktag (called by filter-branch) does:

         * Check for correct form for name and email
         * i.e. " <" followed by "> " on _this_ line
         * No angle brackets within the name or email address fields.
         * No spaces within the email address field.

What does 'git cat-file tag FINDUTILS-4_1-10' show you?

> Are any of those errors correctable (I can re-run the tree rewrite
> script as many times as needed, I'm just using it on a test repository
> for now).

If there are only a few, then you can manually retag with a corrected tagger field, and then run your script.

Of course, depending on the output of the cat-file call above, the testing in git-mktag may need to be relaxed.

-brandon