# git-svn producing "invalid author/committer line"

4 messages from 2009-07-02 to 2009-07-05. Participants: esskov@oncable.dk, Eric Wong, Junio C Hamano.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/20000

## esskov@oncable.dk, 2009-07-02 09:09

Subject: git-svn producing "invalid author/committer line"
Message-ID: <sbqo45dgejpcnt58cam2tfkeon4is2v4ur@4ax.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/sbqo45dgejpcnt58cam2tfkeon4is2v4ur%404ax.com

```
	Hi,

We have an SVN repository with a number of projects in its /trunk.
Different people have r/w-access to different subsets of these projects. 

When I "git-svn fetch" this repo's trunk there will be some revisions that
I don't have access to. In SVN log they show up as empty change-sets with
unspecified author. 
In the resulting git repo, git-fsck says "error in commit
92cf6ec3a55fbbfbf5aea7f0937e4b49470b9112: invalid author/committer line",
and - as a consequence I guess - git-gc aborts.

$ git show 92cf6
commit 92cf6ec3a55fbbfbf5aea7f0937e4b49470b9112
Author: (no author) <(no author)@xxxx>
Date:   Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 +0000

I tried to run "git filter-branch --prune-empty -- --all", to simply
discard these empty commits, but the problem remains. 

After some googling I found a possible work-around, using the
--authors-file option of git-svn to map the "no author" into something
less invalid, but I suppose that would require the list to contain every
other committer as well?

Could I somehow make "git-svn fetch" skip these empty commits,
corresponding to revisions that the SVN user doesn't have access to?


Cheers,

	Esben

```

## Eric Wong, 2009-07-03 04:28

Subject: Re: git-svn producing "invalid author/committer line"
Message-ID: <20090703042846.GA14767@dcvr.yhbt.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20090703042846.GA14767%40dcvr.yhbt.net
In-Reply-To: <sbqo45dgejpcnt58cam2tfkeon4is2v4ur@4ax.com>

```
esskov@oncable.dk wrote:
> 	Hi,
> 
> We have an SVN repository with a number of projects in its /trunk.
> Different people have r/w-access to different subsets of these projects. 
> 
> When I "git-svn fetch" this repo's trunk there will be some revisions that
> I don't have access to. In SVN log they show up as empty change-sets with
> unspecified author. 
> In the resulting git repo, git-fsck says "error in commit
> 92cf6ec3a55fbbfbf5aea7f0937e4b49470b9112: invalid author/committer line",
> and - as a consequence I guess - git-gc aborts.
> 
> $ git show 92cf6
> commit 92cf6ec3a55fbbfbf5aea7f0937e4b49470b9112
> Author: (no author) <(no author)@xxxx>
> Date:   Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 +0000

Actually, it's not the author, but the date == 0 that fsck.c
has an issue with.  Proposed patch to {fsck,commit}.c coming.

> I tried to run "git filter-branch --prune-empty -- --all", to simply
> discard these empty commits, but the problem remains. 
> 
> After some googling I found a possible work-around, using the
> --authors-file option of git-svn to map the "no author" into something
> less invalid, but I suppose that would require the list to contain every
> other committer as well?
> 
> Could I somehow make "git-svn fetch" skip these empty commits,
> corresponding to revisions that the SVN user doesn't have access to?

You can pass '-r<begin>:<end>' in a way similar to "svn log"
to skip commits:

  git svn fetch -r5:200

-- 
Eric Wong

```

## Eric Wong, 2009-07-03 04:34

Subject: [PATCH] Allow the Unix epoch to be a valid commit date
Message-ID: <20090703043454.GA20080@dcvr.yhbt.net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20090703043454.GA20080%40dcvr.yhbt.net
In-Reply-To: <20090703042846.GA14767@dcvr.yhbt.net>

```
It is common practice to use the Unix epoch as a fallback date
when a suitable date is not available.  This is true of git svn
and possibly other importing tools that import non-git history
into git.

Instead of clobbering established strtoul() error reporting
semantics with our own, preserve the strtoul() error value
of ULONG_MAX for fsck.c to handle.

Signed-off-by: Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>
---
 commit.c |    6 +-----
 fsck.c   |    2 +-
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/commit.c b/commit.c
index aa3b35b..a47fb4d 100644
--- a/commit.c
+++ b/commit.c
@@ -50,7 +50,6 @@ struct commit *lookup_commit(const unsigned char *sha1)
 
 static unsigned long parse_commit_date(const char *buf, const char *tail)
 {
-	unsigned long date;
 	const char *dateptr;
 
 	if (buf + 6 >= tail)
@@ -73,10 +72,7 @@ static unsigned long parse_commit_date(const char *buf, const char *tail)
 	if (buf >= tail)
 		return 0;
 	/* dateptr < buf && buf[-1] == '\n', so strtoul will stop at buf-1 */
-	date = strtoul(dateptr, NULL, 10);
-	if (date == ULONG_MAX)
-		date = 0;
-	return date;
+	return strtoul(dateptr, NULL, 10);
 }
 
 static struct commit_graft **commit_graft;
diff --git a/fsck.c b/fsck.c
index 511b82c..89278c1 100644
--- a/fsck.c
+++ b/fsck.c
@@ -229,7 +229,7 @@ static int fsck_commit(struct commit *commit, fsck_error error_func)
 	struct commit_graft *graft;
 	int parents = 0;
 
-	if (!commit->date)
+	if (commit->date == ULONG_MAX)
 		return error_func(&commit->object, FSCK_ERROR, "invalid author/committer line");
 
 	if (memcmp(buffer, "tree ", 5))
-- 
Eric Wong

```

## Junio C Hamano, 2009-07-05 19:27

Subject: Re: [PATCH] Allow the Unix epoch to be a valid commit date
Message-ID: <7vljn3hqvg.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vljn3hqvg.fsf%40alter.siamese.dyndns.org
In-Reply-To: <20090703043454.GA20080@dcvr.yhbt.net>

```
Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net> writes:

> It is common practice to use the Unix epoch as a fallback date
> when a suitable date is not available.  This is true of git svn
> and possibly other importing tools that import non-git history
> into git.
>
> Instead of clobbering established strtoul() error reporting
> semantics with our own, preserve the strtoul() error value
> of ULONG_MAX for fsck.c to handle.
>
> Signed-off-by: Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>

Makes sense.  Will queue.

Thanks.

```