Should GIT_AUTHOR_{NAME,EMAIL} set the tagger name/email?

Maybe this is documented in some place I didn't spot, but I expected that when I set GIT_AUTHOR_{NAME,EMAIL} it would affect the operation of git-tag, but it doesn't seem to. When I create tags it seems to completely ignore those variables.

Should it be doing that? Here's a test script demonstrating the issue:

    #!/bin/sh -e
    # Set defaults
    git config --global user.name "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason"
    git config --global user.email "avarab@gmail.com"

    rm -rf /tmp/test-git
    git init /tmp/test-git
    cd /tmp/test-git

    make_commit() {
        file=$1
        content=$2
        echo $content >$file
        git add $file
        git commit -m"$file: $content" $file
        git --no-pager log -1 HEAD | grep ^Author
    }

    make_commit README "testing content"
    git config user.name "Test User"
    git config user.email "test@example.com"
    make_commit README "testing content again"
    git tag -a -m"annotated tag" tag-name-1
    git --no-pager show tag-name-1 | grep ^Author

    GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Tag Test User"
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="tagtest@example.com" git tag -a -m"another annotated
tag" tag-name-2
    git --no-pager show tag-name-2 | grep ^Author

Which outputs:

    $ sh /tmp/test-tag.sh
    Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/test-git/.git/
    [master (root-commit) 9816756] README: testing content
     1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
     create mode 100644 README
    Author: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
    [master 304b71e] README: testing content again
     1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
    Author: Test User <test@example.com>
    Author: Test User <test@example.com>
    Author: Test User <test@example.com>

I'd expect references to "Tag Test User <tagtest@example.com>" for the second tag I created.

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

A tag doesn't have an author, it has a tagger. This shows the author of the *commit*.

The tagger is controlled by the committer info.

Andreas.

On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 5:57 PM, Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:

I got the grep wrong, I meant that I expected the tagger to be set according to GIT_AUTHOR_{NAME,EMAIL}, but it isn't either:

    $ sh /tmp/test-tag.sh
    Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/test-git/.git/
    [master (root-commit) f83fc11] README: testing content
     1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
     create mode 100644 README
    Author: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
    [master ef65731] README: testing content again
     1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
    Author: Test User <test@example.com>
    Tagger: Test User <test@example.com>
    Author: Test User <test@example.com>
    Tagger: Test User <test@example.com>
    Author: Test User <test@example.com>

I don't get what you mean, what committer info?

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

GIT_COMMITTER_{NAME,EMAIL}.  A tagger isn't really an author.

Andreas.

On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:

Ah, am I the only one that finds that a bit counterintuitive to the point of wanting to submit a patch to change it?

If you've created a tag you're the *author* of that tag, the author/committer distinction for commit objects is there for e.g. rebases and applying commits via e.g. git-am.

We don't have a similar facility for tags (you have to push them around directly), but we *could* and in that case having a Tag-Committer as well well as a Tagger would make sense.

Junio, what do you think?

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

Unless your name is Linus Torvalds and it is early in year 2005, I wouldn't even think about it.

When we introduced "tagger name can be overriden with environment", we could have added GIT_TAGGER_{NAME,EMAIL}, but we didn't. Given that tagging happens far far less often than committing, I think it was a sensible thing to do.

It is a perfectly normal thing in Git for you to commit a patch authored by other people on behalf of them (and that is why AUTHOR exists as a separate name from the committer), but you still stand behind the commits you create by setting COMMITTER of them to you. The fact that it was _you_ who create the tag has similar weight that you have your name as the committer in commit objects, so in that sense, I think the semantics used for the name in tag is far closer to COMMITTER than AUTHOR.

I guess I wouldn't mind too much if "git tag" learned a "--tagger" option, and honored GIT_TAGGER_{NAME,EMAIL} if set (and otherwise, fall back to GIT_COMMITTER_{NAME,EMAIL}), but I do not know if it is worth it. How often would you want to _lie_ about your identity when you are tagging, and what legitimate reason do you have for doing so?

On 11 September 2012 18:53, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Interestingly this came up because of the opposite problem. We wanted to *prevent* users from telling lies about who they are.

IOW, when we do a rollout with git-deploy we want to automatically set their username from a secondary authenticated source before we create a rollout tag in their name.

cheers, Yves