Subject: Re: Can't figure out some sense from the git-commit-tree man page

From: Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:16:41 +0200

[Cc: Mike Hommey <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]]

Mike Hommey wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 05:52:52PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> 
>> On Fri, 17 Aug 2007, Mike Hommey wrote:
>> 
>>>   ?   committer name and email and the commit time.
>>>   If not provided, "git-commit-tree" uses your name, hostname and domain to
>>>   provide author and committer info. This can be overridden by either
>>>   .git/config file, or using the following environment variables.
>>>   (...)
>>> 
>>> The "If not provided" part doesn't make sense.
>> 
>> It does, if you know how to specify the committer info.  Which the man 
>> page specifies how to provide:
>> 
>> This can be overridden by either `.git/config` file, or using the 
>> following environment variables.
>> 
>>         GIT_AUTHOR_NAME
>>         GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL
>>         GIT_AUTHOR_DATE
>>         GIT_COMMITTER_NAME
>>         GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL
>>         GIT_COMMITTER_DATE
>>         EMAIL
> 
> This is exactly where the man page doesn't make sense to me. It tells
> you that if you don't provide committer name, etc. it uses your name,
> hostname, etc., and you can override this with .git/config or the
> environment variable you listed.
> 
> So where were you supposed to provide these informations in the first
> place ?

Where you are supposed to provide this information? In .git/config (per
repository) or in ~/.gitconfig (per user), in the form:

[user]
        name  = Mike Hommey
        email = [email-masked]

"If not provided" means that git gets your user name from system, from the
GECOS files in /etc/passwd, and composes your email address from your user
id (account name), and from the hostname of your machine (or "(localhost)").
This is last resort fallback, so you better provide user and email yourself.
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git