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

[Cc: Mike Hommey [off-list ref], git@vger.kernel.org]

Mike Hommey wrote:

On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 05:52:52PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

On Fri, 17 Aug 2007, Mike Hommey wrote:

quoted

  ?   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 = mh@glandium.org


"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