# git-filter-branch may leave tree in a nasty state 3 messages from 2008-03-02 to 2008-03-02. Participants: Jan Engelhardt, Johannes Schindelin. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/12434 ## Jan Engelhardt, 2008-03-02 19:31 Subject: git-filter-branch may leave tree in a nasty state Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.64.0803022029540.27717%40fbirervta.pbzchgretzou.qr ``` Hi, $ git-filter-branch --env-filter 'export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="";' b4caa441..HEAD Rewrite cf1d02ac074041f7e570ff206d87fb47ef2b2c34 (1/1)fatal: empty ident not allowed Ref 'refs/heads/master' was deleted fatal: Not a valid object name HEAD $ git log fatal: bad default revision 'HEAD' ``` ## Johannes Schindelin, 2008-03-02 20:40 Subject: Re: git-filter-branch may leave tree in a nasty state Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LSU.1.00.0803022039360.22527%40racer.site In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, On Sun, 2 Mar 2008, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > $ git-filter-branch --env-filter 'export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="";' b4caa441..HEAD > Rewrite cf1d02ac074041f7e570ff206d87fb47ef2b2c34 (1/1)fatal: empty ident > not allowed Well, I kinda expected people savvy enough to run filter-branch to have set up the proper ident ;-) Ciao, Dscho ``` ## Jan Engelhardt, 2008-03-02 21:02 Subject: Re: git-filter-branch may leave tree in a nasty state Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.64.0803022159130.27717%40fbirervta.pbzchgretzou.qr In-Reply-To: ``` On Mar 2 2008 20:40, Johannes Schindelin wrote: >On Sun, 2 Mar 2008, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > >> $ git-filter-branch --env-filter 'export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="";' b4caa441..HEAD >> Rewrite cf1d02ac074041f7e570ff206d87fb47ef2b2c34 (1/1)fatal: empty ident >> not allowed > >Well, I kinda expected people savvy enough to run filter-branch to have >set up the proper ident ;-) Nah, this is just the test case. The real scripts I use write author, email and log message to a file in the env-filter hook, call an editor where they can be arbitrarily changed, and then the rest of the env-filter and msg-filter hooks parse the text file back into the shell variables. So I am changing the ident of existing commits (postprocessing a non-git tree conversion). The problem is that some editors clear the terminal window (in other words, they are "full-screen"), so I did not get to see the filter-branch error message at all because the next editor invocation just popped in. Most importantly, git-filter-branch should STOP when it detects a problem, not try rewriting the next commit. ```