Subject: Re: [PATCH] import-tars: properly import git-archive tarballs

From: Gabriel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:00:02 +0100

> Gabriel:
> > git-archive adds a special entry to the archives it creates, 
> > pax_global_header, containing the SHA1 of the exported commit.
> 
> Interesting use-case.

My use case really was a simple “import a range of tarballs for
bisecting”. That they were from git was a surprise, but I don't have
access to that repo, which for all I know is full of junk and not meant
for publication, so I'm not trying to get the original history.

I just want importing to work on tarballs found in the wild.

> > Now import-tars correctly ignores the comment.
> 
> In the case where you actually would care, perhaps it should be added
> as a comment to the default commit message? Something like "Imported
> from $tar_file, created from commit $commit.".

Someone with stronger perl-fu to parse the hash comment could print on
stderr (keep me CC-ed if you do that):
  This tarball was generated by git, from commit id $SHA1.

It will serve as a hint when the person doing the import has access to
the original history. I don't think there's a point in keeping a sha1
when there's no access; keeping it in the history would confuse people,
or require sticking a longer explanation to each of these commits.