Subject: Re: [RFD] use approxidate for "git commit --date=xyz"?

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 14:34:59 -0700

Linus Torvalds <[email-masked]> writes:

> I just got a comment saying that
>
>     git commit --amend --date=now
>
> doesn't work. I replied that you can use
>
>    --date="$(date)"

Offhand without double-checking the actual codepath I do not have
objection against approxidate-careful.

But why does the workflow need --date=now in the first place?
Wouldn't --reset-author do what you want better?  What is the
situation where you want to say that this patch has been changed
significantly enough from the original to label it with the current
timestamp without taking the authorship?

> but I do wonder if we should accept the approxidate format - we do in
> other equivalent places. Hmm?
>
> The code uses fmt_ident(), which uses parse_date(), which in turn uses
> parse_date_basic(). Maybe parse_date() could use
> "approxidate_careful()" instead of "parse_date_basic()"?
>
>             Linus