git.vger.kernel.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf.Wildenhues@gmx.de>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH] Improve description of git filter-branch.
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:39:00 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20080315103900.GC14769@ins.uni-bonn.de> (raw)

Signed-off-by: Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf.Wildenhues@gmx.de>
---

Now that I learned about filter-branch, here's my share of nits with its
documentation, a couple of language nits and inaccuracies.

One problem was that I originally understood the manual in the way that
only --env-filter may be used to modify GIT_AUTHOR_NAME etc., and thus
I failed to see how with the fixed order I could change that with data
taken from the tree.  

Also, I think it is quite helpful to state that all filters operate in
the shell environment of the script (this may be an issue for a later
conversion to a builtin).

Cheers,
Ralf

 Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt |   25 +++++++++++++------------
 1 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
index 543a1cf..3f7df04 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
@@ -20,12 +20,12 @@ DESCRIPTION
 Lets you rewrite git revision history by rewriting the branches mentioned
 in the <rev-list options>, applying custom filters on each revision.
 Those filters can modify each tree (e.g. removing a file or running
-a perl rewrite on all files) or information about each commit.
+a perl script on all files) or information about each commit.
 Otherwise, all information (including original commit times or merge
 information) will be preserved.
 
 The command will only rewrite the _positive_ refs mentioned in the
-command line (i.e. if you pass 'a..b', only 'b' will be rewritten).
+command line (i.e. if you pass 'a..b', 'a' will not be rewritten).
 If you specify no filters, the commits will be recommitted without any
 changes, which would normally have no effect.  Nevertheless, this may be
 useful in the future for compensating for some git bugs or such,
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ Always verify that the rewritten version is correct: The original refs,
 if different from the rewritten ones, will be stored in the namespace
 'refs/original/'.
 
-Note that since this operation is extensively I/O expensive, it might
+Note that since this operation is extremely I/O expensive, it might
 be a good idea to redirect the temporary directory off-disk with the
 '-d' option, e.g. on tmpfs.  Reportedly the speedup is very noticeable.
 
@@ -51,14 +51,15 @@ Filters
 ~~~~~~~
 
 The filters are applied in the order as listed below.  The <command>
-argument is always evaluated in shell using the 'eval' command (with the
-notable exception of the commit filter, for technical reasons).
+argument is always evaluated in the shell context using the 'eval' command
+(with the notable exception of the commit filter, for technical reasons).
 Prior to that, the $GIT_COMMIT environment variable will be set to contain
 the id of the commit being rewritten.  Also, GIT_AUTHOR_NAME,
 GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL, GIT_AUTHOR_DATE, GIT_COMMITTER_NAME, GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL,
-and GIT_COMMITTER_DATE are set according to the current commit. If any
-evaluation of <command> returns a non-zero exit status, the whole operation
-will be aborted.
+and GIT_COMMITTER_DATE are set according to the current commit.  The values
+of these variables after the filters have run, are used for the new commit.
+If any evaluation of <command> returns a non-zero exit status, the whole
+operation will be aborted.
 
 A 'map' function is available that takes an "original sha1 id" argument
 and outputs a "rewritten sha1 id" if the commit has been already
@@ -71,9 +72,9 @@ OPTIONS
 -------
 
 --env-filter <command>::
-	This is the filter for modifying the environment in which
-	the commit will be performed.  Specifically, you might want
-	to rewrite the author/committer name/email/time environment
+	This filter may be used if you only need to modify the environment
+	in which the commit will be performed.  Specifically, you might
+	want to rewrite the author/committer name/email/time environment
 	variables (see linkgit:git-commit[1] for details).  Do not forget
 	to re-export the variables.
 
@@ -149,7 +150,7 @@ definition impossible to preserve signatures at any rate.)
 -d <directory>::
 	Use this option to set the path to the temporary directory used for
 	rewriting.  When applying a tree filter, the command needs to
-	temporary checkout the tree to some directory, which may consume
+	temporarily checkout the tree to some directory, which may consume
 	considerable space in case of large projects.  By default it
 	does this in the '.git-rewrite/' directory but you can override
 	that choice by this parameter.
-- 
1.5.4.4.603.g1f9f

             reply	other threads:[~2008-03-15 10:39 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2008-03-15 10:39 Ralf Wildenhues [this message]
2008-03-20 15:43 ` [PATCH] Improve description of git filter-branch Ralf Wildenhues
2008-03-20 16:42   ` Junio C Hamano
2008-03-20 19:31 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-03-20 21:30   ` Ralf Wildenhues

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20080315103900.GC14769@ins.uni-bonn.de \
    --to=ralf.wildenhues@gmx.de \
    --cc=git@vger.kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).