commit.txt: clarify how --author argument is used
commit --author was added by 146ea06 (git commit --author=$name: look $name up
in existing commits), but its documentation was sorely lacking compared to its
excellent commit message. This commit tries to improve the documentation.
Signed-off-by: Jay Soffian <jaysoffian@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
diff --git a/Documentation/git-commit.txt b/Documentation/git-commit.txt
index 64fb458..69eb86e 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-commit.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-commit.txt
@@ -95,10 +95,11 @@
read the message from the standard input.
--author=<author>::
- Override the author name used in the commit. You can use the
- standard `A U Thor <author@example.com>` format. Otherwise,
- an existing commit that matches the given string and its author
- name is used.
+ Override the commit author. Specify an explicit author using the
+ standard `A U Thor <author@example.com>` format. Otherwise <author>
+ is assumed to be a pattern and is used to search for an existing
+ commit by that author (i.e. rev-list --all -i --author=<author>);
+ the commit author is then copied from the first such commit found.
--date=<date>::
Override the author date used in the commit.
