| commit | fbf3d0669f830b4492070aa33f57dbf2c43fa4c8 | [log] [tgz] |
|---|---|---|
| author | Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name> | Thu Nov 20 17:26:49 2025 +0100 |
| committer | Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> | Thu Nov 20 10:03:31 2025 -0800 |
| tree | b9da3fc3c190a01490f8d8f9fd0c724108976e7c | |
| parent | f368df439b31b422169975cc3c95f7db6a46eada [diff] |
doc: warn against --committer-date-is-author-date
This option could create a commit history which violates the assumption
that commits have non-decreasing commit timestamps. Warn against that in
both git-am(1) and git-rebase(1).
The genesis of this option is from git-am(1) and was added in
3f01ad66 (am: Add --committer-date-is-author-date option,
2009-01-22). The commit message doesn’t give us an example
of a use case, but the thread starter does:[1]
I've a big set of patches in a mbox file: there's sufficient info
inside for git-am to work.
Yet, each time I do import these, my sha1sums are changing because of
different commit dates.
I'd like to force the commit date to match the info/date from the time
I received the email (and therefore always get back the right
sha1sums).
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/46d6db660901221441q60eb90bdge601a7a250c3a247@mail.gmail.com/
So the motivation was to treat git-am(1) as an import command that
creates the same commit IDs.
Putting aside the question of whether you should be using git-am(1) for
importing commits, this approach is problematic:
• you still need to apply the commits to the same base if you want the
same hashes; and
• you need the same committer.
And if you expect the same committer, why is this person applying the
same patches multiple times with the goal of making *identical* commits?
That was all for git-am(1).
It was added to git-rebase(1) in 570ccad3 (rebase: add options passed to
git-am, 2009-03-18)[2] in order to plug options that could not be sent
on to git-am(1). At this point the utility of the option graduated to
making no sense; a use case for `git rebase --committer-date-is-author-
date` is still yet to be found.
Just warn against using this option on both commands and remind the user
to consider whether they really need it.
† 2: See also 7573cec5 (rebase -i: support
--committer-date-is-author-date, 2020-08-17) for the commit for the
merge backend
Suggested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
Signed-off-by: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name>
Acked-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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