Re: using oldest date when squashing commits

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 24, 2023, 17:30 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqpm143p46.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <138631cd-ead3-4f22-95ce-61afccfa409f@gmail.com>

Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

>>> Unfortunately "fixup -C" only copies the commit message not the
>>> authorship
>> 
>>> (that's usually a good thing
>>>
>> why? what would that be useful for?
>> it seems rather counter-intuitive.
>
> In the same way that you do not want to change the author date when
> using a fixup to move a small hunk from one commit to another most
> users do not want to update the author information when they make a
> small change to a commit message using "fixup -C"

Exactly.

It would be OK to add "fixup -c --reset-author", but the default should stay. In addition, I wouldn't be able to use "rebase -i" to make typofixes to commits made out of received patches if the operation changes the authorship.

> "fixup -c/-C" were conceived as a way to reword a commit message at
> the same time as optionally fixing up the commit's content.

Yup, it still is a "fix", meaning the identity and the spirit of the commit being fixed are unchanged. What it aims to achieve, how it implements the behaviour it wants to give its users, who thought of that change, all that are the same as the original. It may be a nice addition to optionally allow users to use --reset-author (or better yet, --author="Na Me <a@dd.re.ss>") with "fixup", but if the "-c" variant can be concluded with "commit --amend --reset-author" to achieve the same effect, that may be sufficient.

Thanks.