How to omit/alter the sigend-off line in a patch set?

Hello,

  I am creating a patch set in this way:
I make a change in one file, than commit it. (git commit file1)
Then I make a change in a second file, than commit it. (git commit file1)
and so on.

Then I create a patch set thus:

git-format-patch -M -s -n -o patchdir origin

And a number of patch files are created, according to the number of commits I had made.

Now, in each created patch file there is a line saying:
Signed-off-by: root <root@hostName.(none)>

Which is caused as I am doing this patches as root, and the machine name is hostName (and the domain name is none).

Now, is there a way to cause git-format-patch to omit this
Signed-off-by: root <root@hostName.(none)> line ?
Or, altetnatively, is there a way to cause the git-format-patch to
generate a differnet
signed off by line (like signed off by ianbrn@gmail.com)?

I had tried using the --signoff option for git-format-patch , in these two ways, but got an error:

git-format-patch --signoff=ianbrn@gmail.com -M -n -o patchdir origin fatal: unrecognized argument: --signoff=ianbrn@gmail.com

git-format-patch --signoff ianbrn@gmail.com -M -n -o patchdir origin fatal: ambiguous argument 'ianbrn@gmail.com': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Use '--' to separate paths from revisions

I also tried to use the -a flag for commit git-commit -a ianbrn@gmail.com but again it did not help either.

Any ideas?

Any help will be appreciated,

Regards, Ian

"Ian Brown" <ianbrn@gmail.com> writes:

So you don't add Signed-off-by to yout commit. If you plan on sharing your work not only by sending patches, but by publishing your repository somwehere, it would be better to signoff your commit, so S-o-b is in "history", not only in mailing list archive...

This can be done by using '-s' option to git-commit, i.e.
  $ git commit -s file1
or by adding signoff to your commit template, if you use it.

By the way, usually one uses either
  $ git add file1; git commit
or
  $ git commit -a
(optionally with signoff).

Adding '-s | --signoff' option is what creates Signed-off-by line.

WHY do you work as ROOT?

Simply do not add '-s' option to git-format-patch, and if signoff line was not present in commit, it wouldn't be present in patch.

You can configure git, either in repository config (.git/config), or in your user config (~/.gitconfig) by adding the following

-- cut starts here --
[user]
	name  = Ian Brown
	email = ianbrn@gmail.com
-- cut ends here --

You can use git-config to set those config variables, but I think editing simple ini-like text file is simpler. But if you prefer, there is scriptable solution:

  $ git config --global user.name "Ian Brown"
  $ git config --global user.email ianbrn@gmail.com

According to git-format-patch(1) manpage the --signoff option does not accept any parameters. It always uses committer identity of yourself.

Please, please read the documentation. git-commit -a has _nothing_ to do with signoff...