From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 19:43:16 GMT
Subject: Re: git merge --date --author
Message-ID: <xmqqvbvpu757.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <87y50mxj0b.fsf@igel.home>

Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:

> Yann Droneaud <ydroneaud@opteya.com> writes:
>
>> But I'd like to know if there's a specific reason for git merge to not
>> support --date and --author ?
>
> It's rather unusual that a merge is performed on behalf of a different
> author.

Yes.  Michael's "Nobody bothered to implement it" is also correct
but the reason why nobody bothered to most likely is due to "why
would you want to lie?".

If the use case is to rebuild history, you would need to be able to
also lie about the committer, so

>> git merge \
>>     --date "2013-12-31 23:59:59 +0000" \
>>     --author "Happy New Year <happy.new-year@gregorian.calendar>" \
>>     current-year

in such a history-rebuild script would not be sufficient.  The
script can set necessary environment variables to lie about both
author and commiter, though, of course.