git merge --date --author

Hi,

I was trying to rebuild some history and found myself trying to use some options with git merge which are available in git commit:

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

But unfortunately, unlike git commit, git merge doesn't support either --date or --author.

I can work around with environment variables:

 GIT_AUTHOR_DATE="2013-12-31 23:59:59 +0000" \
 GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Happy New Year" \
 GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="happy.new-year@gregorian.calendar"  \
 git merge current-year

But I'd like to know if there's a specific reason for git merge to not support --date and --author ?

Regards.

On 03/07/2014 11:30 AM, Yann Droneaud wrote:

You can also use

    git merge --no-commit [...]
    git commit --date ... --author ...

None that I can think of, except that nobody has implemented it. Don't forget that the merge invocation might not lead immediately to a commit (if there is a conflict, or if --no-commit is used) so the metadata that is passed to its command line would have to be tucked away safely somewhere until the merge commit is finally ready to be created.

Michael

Yann Droneaud <ydroneaud@opteya.com> writes:

It's rather unusual that a merge is performed on behalf of a different author.

Andreas.

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

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

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.

Hi,

Le vendredi 07 mars 2014 à 11:43 -0800, Junio C Hamano a écrit :

When was Git changed in some kind of TSA agent one has to bribe to get allowed to cross^Wcommit ? Why git lawyer is not implemented ? I want a fair trial !

And before adding to Git a perfect lie detector (how will it able to make the difference between truth and lie ? then, will it be able to make the difference between good and bad ?, oh god, no !), I would prefer to have it detect bugs before one could commit instead.

You seems to think I'm lying, but I'm not a liar: I just need to make some arrangements with the history under another identity, as I could be legally bound to. So it may sound like a lie for you, but ultimately, it's the plain truth.

So as the tool is not in position to distinguish lie from truth, I'd prefer to not see this concept brought here.

Thanks for reminding this: I have to use GIT_COMMITER_DATE, GIT_COMMITER_NAME and GIT_COMMITER_EMAIL.

As I'm not calling for adding --date and --author, I will continue to use the environment variables: they're good enough for the job.

Regards.