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[BUG] rewriting history with filter-branch --commit-filter

Subject: [BUG] rewriting history with filter-branch --commit-filter

## tl;dr

3 messages between Aug 20, 2014 and Aug 20, 2014.

replies: 2people: 2as markdown or json

Davide Fiorentino· Aug 20, 2014, 08:16 UTC · lore
Hi,

I was in the need to rewrite author name and email and commit date for a single commit and I guess I found a bug. I run this git-filter script

$ git filter-branch --commit-filter ‘
    if [ "$GIT_COMMIT"="9cfca27" ]; 
        then GIT_AUTHOR_NAME=“Michelle”; 
            GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=“michelle@email.com”; 
            GIT_AUTHOR_DATE="2009-12-31T23:59:59”; 
            git commit-tree "$@“; 
        else 
            git commit-tree "$@“;
    fi' HEAD
and found that all history was rewritten as if “Michelle” not only commit 9cfca27.

I also tried using full length commit id and a non-existing commit id: nothing changes. In the following example to replicate the replicate the bug I’m using a non-existing commit id to make the effect more evident.

$ git --version git version 2.0.1

$ mkdir project
$ cd project
$ git init
$ for i in 1 2 3; do echo "foo" >> foo$i.txt; git add foo$i.txt; git commit -m "foo$i"; done
[master (root-commit) 89dec6e] foo1
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
 create mode 100644 foo1.txt
[master 8a3c8e5] foo2
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
 create mode 100644 foo2.txt
[master a3ca061] foo3
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
 create mode 100644 foo3.txt
$ git log --graph --all --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h%C(cyan)%d%Creset %s %C(white)- %an, %ar%Creset'
* a3ca061 (HEAD, master) foo3 - David, 4 seconds ago
* 8a3c8e5 foo2 - David, 4 seconds ago
* 89dec6e foo1 - David, 4 seconds ago
$ git filter-branch --commit-filter '
    if [ "$GIT_COMMIT"="308add7" ]; 
        then GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Michelle"; 
            GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="michelle@email.com"; 
            GIT_AUTHOR_DATE="2009-12-31T23:59:59"; 
            git commit-tree "$@"; 
        else 
            git commit-tree "$@";
    fi' HEAD
$ git log --graph --all --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h%C(cyan)%d%Creset %s %C(white)- %an, %ar%Creset'
* 8937dff (HEAD, master) foo3 - Michelle, 4 years, 8 months ago
* 30e494e foo2 - Michelle, 4 years, 8 months ago
* 2a2ba4f foo1 - Michelle, 4 years, 8 months ago
* a3ca061 (refs/original/refs/heads/master) foo3 - David, 8 seconds ago
* 8a3c8e5 foo2 - David, 8 seconds ago
* 89dec6e foo1 - David, 8 seconds ago
$ git log
commit 8937dff7e6a3f5545c2242e3fd5d33acbabe6df4
Author: Michelle <michelle@email.com>
Date:   Thu Dec 31 23:59:59 2009 +0100
    foo3
commit 30e494ef27f16c5456e66214ea46b780581dfb48
Author: Michelle <michelle@email.com>
Date:   Thu Dec 31 23:59:59 2009 +0100
    foo2
commit 2a2ba4fd6b9627e237a12b47570a3f020a202b55
Author: Michelle <michelle@email.com>
Date:   Thu Dec 31 23:59:59 2009 +0100
    foo1
using env-filter, I managed to rewrite the history with this:
$ git filter-branch --env-filter '
 
name="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
email="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
 
if [ "$GIT_COMMIT" = "89dec6e4bc1fb3cff694ea83f5ed900dad43449e" ]
then
    name="Michelle"
    email="Michelle@email.com"
fi

export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME=“$name" export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=“$email" '

Hope this helped.
Davide
Jeff King· Aug 20, 2014, 08:52 UTC · re: Davide Fiorentino · lore

Re: [BUG] rewriting history with filter-branch --commit-filter

On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 10:16:11AM +0200, Davide Fiorentino wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> I was in the need to rewrite author name and email and commit date for a single commit and I guess I found a bug.
> I run this git-filter script
> 
> $ git filter-branch --commit-filter ‘
>     if [ "$GIT_COMMIT"="9cfca27" ]; 
>         then GIT_AUTHOR_NAME=“Michelle”; 
>             GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=“michelle@email.com”; 
>             GIT_AUTHOR_DATE="2009-12-31T23:59:59”; 
>             git commit-tree "$@“; 
>         else 
>             git commit-tree "$@“;
>     fi' HEAD
> 
> and found that all history was rewritten as if “Michelle” not only commit 9cfca27.

The filter snippets you provide to filter-branch are shell script. The `[` command (aka `test`) is just another shell command, and follows the usual whitespace splitting rules. In your command:

  [ "$GIT_COMMIT"="9cfca27" ]

it sees only one single argument, all concatenated together. A single argument given to `test` is the same as `test -n`: it tells you whether the string is empty, so this conditional is always true. You wanted:

  [ "$GIT_COMMIT" = "9cfca27" ]

instead. The whitespace makes the "=" a separate argument, and the command knows it's an operator. You should also use the full commit id, as that is what will be in $GIT_COMMIT.

-Peff

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