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

On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 06:30:34PM +0200, Mike Hommey wrote:

Hi,

The git-commit-tree man page reads:
  A commit encapsulates:

  ·   all parent object ids

  ·   author name, email and date

  ·   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. If you're not setting the
author and committer in your config or environment, how are you supposed
to provide it ?

Makes sense to me. I interpreted it as:

  If not provided (by one of the ways I'm about to mention), the default
  is ... This default can be overridden by ...

I can understand how it might be read differently, though. Assuming my
reading is correct, might something along these lines be clearer:

  To find author and committer info, "git-commit-tree" first looks at
  these environment variables:

  ...

  If they are not set, it tries the keys user.name and user.email from
  the .git/config file. Finally, it falls back to using your name,
  hostname, and domain.

Even clearer, though this might be a bit extreme, would be to not
mention .git/config and say it reads the global or repository-specific
keys using git-config.

-- 
"I like talking to Rabbit.  He talks  about sensible things.  He doesn't
use long,  difficult words,  like Owl.  He uses short,  easy words, like
'What about  lunch?' and  'Help yourself,  Pooh.'  I suppose,  really, I
ought to go and see Rabbit."     A. A. Milne, 'The House at Pooh Corner'