Re: [PATCH] fast-import docs: LT is valid in email, GT is not

On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] wrote:

Mark Lodato wrote:

quoted

+++ b/Documentation/git-fast-import.txt

@@ -394,7 +394,7 @@ Here `<name>` is the person's display name (for example

 and greater-than (\x3e) symbols.  These are required to delimit
 the email address from the other fields in the line.  Note that
 `<name>` is free-form and may contain any sequence of bytes, except
-`LT` and `LF`.  It is typically UTF-8 encoded.
+`GT` and `LF`.  It is typically UTF-8 encoded.

       Here <name> is the person’s display name (for example
       “Com M Itter”)

So the original text is correct --- a <name> cannot contain LT because
a less-than sign marks the boundary between a name and email address.

Ah, you're right, sorry.  I thought it was <email>, not <name>.

Maybe you were wondering what characters are valid in an e-mail address?
The comments in fast-import.c and code in ident.c are consistent about
this: the forbidden characters are <, >, and LF, though no one seems to
check (see also my other reply).  A patch to explain this (including a
reference to git-commit-tree(1), I guess) might be useful.

git won’t understand an email with embedded > or LF.  I’m not sure a <
would cause problems, but I don’t mind that it is disallowed.

It seems like it would be good to disallow <, >, and LF in both name
and email.  With your other patch, > is allowed in the name.

Thanks for the clarification,
Mark